【Reaction to Chapter 1】

When I read this first time, I wondered why the level of happiness [like what is rich or poor, what situation is fulfilled] is different, although their relationship is just parent and daughter. However through yesterday’s class, I found something that gives me a clue to the answer. In my opinion, If we take the Japanese way of thinking, children are raised according to their mother's way of thinking, so they often think basically the same way. On the other hand, since this story was written by the author in the US, I saw this as a manifestation of personal independence.

In the third paragraph, she was reluctant to reveal the secret which is her mother is like a homeless person. So it means that her mother is someone she wants to hide and does not want people to know about. From this statement, I grasped that for her, her mother was an entity that she wanted to disconnect from her.

As I read through Chapter 1, she even attempts to help her mother financially. And the mother refuses, but there was a message there that she wanted to convey to her daughter as a mother. In other words, I got the sense that theirs was not just a disagreement, but that there was a parent-child bond there.

the structure of the story.

The most interesting expression I felt was the representation of the silent, since the situation was not only described by the word "silent," but also clearly explained.

The Apartment was silent except for the click of my heels on the polished floor. Using this method can draw the reader more into the world of the story.