Narrative Analysis

By Genevieve M. Nangit
February 26, 2024

Aunt Jess and Uncle Clive

This chapter is about Norma Jeane’s transient home while her mother was in the hospital.

Primary sentence
Shall we go? This was movie talk; the child was alerted to danger.

Yet as in a movie you must play out the scene. You must not show your suspicion. For of course
you don’t know beforehand. Only if you’d stayed through the feature to see the movie a second
time would you know what the strained smiles, the evasive eyes, the clumsy dialogue really
mean.

The child smiled happily. The child was trusting and wanted you to see it. (Page 64)

Sub-primary sentence
Always it’s important to be costumed correctly, whatever the scene. Norma Jeane was wearing
her only good school clothes: a plaid pleated skirt, a white cotton blouse (ironed by Jess Flynn
herself that morning), reasonably clean mended white socks, and her newest undies. Her curly-
snarly hair was brushed, through not combed. (“No use!” Miss Flynn sighed, letting the
hairbrush fall onto her bed. “I’d be tearing half the hair out of your head, Norma Jeane, if I
persisted.”) (Page 67)

Supporting sentences
1 She loved me; she was taken from me but she loved me always. Page 64

2 Your momma is well enough to see you now, Norma Jeane. Page 64

It was Miss Flynn speaking. And Mr. Pearce behind her in the doorway.
3 Embarrassing to Miss Flynn and Mr. Pearce that Norma Jeane clutched so desperately at Page 67
her doll. That doll was so shabby, its skin fire-scorched and most of its hair burnt away
and its glassy-blue eyes fixed in an expression of idiot horror. Miss Flynn had promised
Norma Jeane she would purchase her another doll but there’d been no time or else Miss
Flynn has forgotten. Norma Jeane was prepared to hug her doll tight and never let her go
— “This is my doll. My mother gave me.”
4 Norma Jeane did not believe these adults had purposefully deceived her, any more than Page 69
Gladys had deceived her. These were different times and different scenes. In film there is
no inevitable sequence, for all is present tense. Film can be run backward as well as
forward. Film can be severely edited. Film can be whited out. Film is the repository of
that which, failing to be remembered, is immortal. One day when Norma Jeane would
come permanently to dwell in the Kingdom of Madness she would recall how logical, if
still hurtful, was this day. She would recall, erroneously, that Mr. Pearce has played “Fur
Elise” before setting out on their journey, “One last time, my dear.”
 Narrative Analysis
By Genevieve M. Nangit
February 26, 2024

Reference
“Blonde” by Joyce Carol Oates. 2000. 4th Estate: London, UK.