In the passage I chose, it starts with Lauren, the main character, is having a meaningful conversation with her brother, Keith, who has been leaving the safety of the neighborhood that they live in. Then after their sweet interaction, Lauren writes that Keith has been killed and explains how he was murdered as well as hers, her family’s, and the police’s reactions to what happened. The first couple of paragraphs are not as filled with language as the rest of the sections are, but the reason I added it in was to show the contrast between that section and the section right after. In these first paragraphs, we see a bond between Keith and Lauren that did not exist earlier in the book. Before he left the neighborhood, Keith and Lauren were not close at all but because he left, something that Lauren has wanted to do since the beginning of the book, she is able to connect with him more easily. They have a sweet moment where he gives her a birthday present and the reader can see that they are in a good place in their relationship. …show more content…
This sentence saying that her parents had to identify her brother’s body is the only sentence in her journal entry from that day so it is separate from everything else. Octavia Butler’s direct and abrupt change in the subject makes the sentence in strong contrast to the one before it, and she does this to make the sentence about Keith’s death that much more impactful to the reader. She also does this by making it just a short sentence all by itself rather than grouped with when she talks more specifically about his