Journal entry 4: Stitches

In this segment of the book, we see the reoccurrence of the Alice in Wonderland theme previously referenced on pg. 56 when he talks about falling in love with Alice and then again on pg. 62+63 he creates an escape by jumping "into the rabbit hole" of one of his drawings. Its his way of escaping his real world problems. Jumping back to this segment we see his therapist in the form of the white rabbit. He is coming face to face with his problems and fears in life and his therapist is there for his validation. On pg. 263 the therapist/rabbit says " you've been living in a world of nonsense, David. No one had been telling you the truth about anything. But I am going to tell you the truth". The truth here is the explanation for why his childhood was the way it was, and he puts it simply as " your mother doesn't love you". (255) David coming to terms with this allowed him to pull himself together while the rest of his family fell apart which was very important. I wonder if Davids mothers lack of love for David is really spelled out in the beginning to us with how she was born with her heart on the wrong side, as if it were to be inevitable.

Images and frames are really played with when Davids father confesses to him about giving him cancer. On 287 the entire page is filled with His dads horrified face confessing " I GAVE YOU CANCER" and then the very next page is just Davids blank stare reaction. The following page we see filled with the scene of his father standing behind the x-ray machine with three small rectangular frames overlapping it on the top showing Davids eyes. The next page is a switch to David as a baby strapped down and having the x-rays taken, its the other side of the scene pictured with his dad previously and now we see the three overlapping images on the bottom of the page, nearly identical to the ones on the front page except now it shows the eyes of david as a small child/baby. In the final page of this scene, we see again the page having one large frame with David as a baby overlapping with David in the present. Through these frames and imaging it takes us in and out of the process of the flashback David is having and bringing them together. While examining it, I picture it much like in Minority Report when we see the pre-cogs going in and out of a vision, like clarification.