Quote 1
"Oh, she loved to write short stories. Little romantic stories. She wouldn't let anybody read them. But she'd always be scribbling in her notebook."
"Wow," I said.
That was all I could say.
I mean, my sister had become a humanoid underground dweller. There wasn't much romance in that. Or maybe there was. Maybe my sister read romances all day. Maybe she was trapped in those romances. (5.92-5.95)
Arnold's sister Mary loves the genre of romance so much that she even writes her own stories. Mary, though, doesn't show her writing to anyone. She hides her reading, her writing, and most important of all – herself. (Down in her parents' basement, that is.) How is Mary's relationship to reading and writing different from Arnold's? Is Mary really "trapped" in those romances? What is she trying to escape?