Chapter 4: Rhetoric Study

"There are no verdicts to childhood, only consequences, and the bright freight of memory.  I speak now of the sun-struck, deeply lived-in days of my past.  I am more fabulist than historian, but I will try to give you the insoluble, unedited terror of youth.  I betray the integrity of my family’s history by turning everything, even sadness, into romance.  There is no romance in this story; there is only the story.

Let us begin with a single fact: The island dogs are calling to each other.

It is night.  My grandfather listens to them and does not like the sound.  In that melody of hounds all the elegiac loneliness of my part of the world is contained.  The island dogs are afraid.  It is October 4, 1944, ten o’clock in the evening.  The tide is rising and will not be full until 1:49 the next morning. 

My sister is born in the white house by the river.  My mother is not due for a month, but that is of small import now.  Sarah Jenkins, eighty-five, black, and a midwife for sixty years, is bent over my mother as Savannah is born.  Dr. Bannister, Colleton’s only doctor, is dying in Charleston at this very moment. 

Sarah Jenkins is tending to Savannah when she notices my head making its unexpected appearance.  I came as a surprise, an afterthought.

There is a hurricane moving toward Melrose Island.  My grandfather is strengthening the windows with masking tape.  He goes over and stares down into the cradle at Luke, who is sleeping.  He listens again to the medley of dogs but he can barely hear them now because of the wind.  The power went out over an hour before and I am delivered into the world by candlelight.

Sarah Jenkins cleans us thoroughly and attends to our mother.  It has been a messy, difficult birth and she fears there might be complications (75-76)."

Chapter 4 is the first of a series of flashbacks that help explain the Wingos’ past and Savannah’s insanity.  In this excerpt, Tom reveals some important details about his and Savannah’s birth.  Conroy’s abstract diction, the details of the setting, and the present-tense narration are important rhetorical techniques that strengthen the meaning of the passage.

This passage only covers the hours surrounding Tom and Savannah’s birth, but it represents patterns that continue throughout their lives.  The abstract language, including phrases like “elegiac loneliness” and “insoluble, unedited terror” helps create an ominous, oppressing mood, while the tangible descriptions of the setting and the background events show the hardship more directly.

When Savannah and Tom are born, a hurricane is heading for Melrose Island.  Their grandfather prepares by putting masking tape over the window panes, showing us that the storm is going to be serious and threatening.  The island dogs are howling, adding to the eeriness and foreboding of the occasion.  The power goes out, leaving everyone in a primitive, organic situation and demonstrating that they are against nature in their survival attempts, without modern conveniences to aid them.  Most importantly, they are alone.  It is implied that there is nobody else on the island, at least not anybody near them.  The town doctor is not able to assist with the birth because he is dying miles away.  It is a difficult birth, and the midwife “fears there might be complications.”

There is a parallel between the "messy, difficult birth" and Tom and Savannah's childhood.  The potential of complications shows that just because they got through the birth doesn't mean they are free from problems.  Similarly, enduring their childhood and moving on into adulthood does not free them from emotional problems.

Interestingly, Tom narrates this passage in present tense, as though he is observing the scene from the outside instead of being involved in it.  His narration shows detachment from his life.  Tom is very emotional, but he chooses to ignore the emotion of his childhood experiences.  As an adult, he looks back on them as an outsider because he does not want to remember the pain of being involved in them.