600 blog post

In the reading of the Liars Club, one gets bombarded with the use of imagery. Karr uses many different ways to assist in her descriptions. One of the more reoccurring describers though is the use of smell. Karr relates smells to a specific adjective or feeling. She helps transcend what she wants the reader to feel often through the smell that she relates to something good, or bad, or nice, etc.

The first example of this is when Mary is talking about draining her parent’s alcohol. Karr writes, “Dumping those bottles down the sink drain, I always craned my face away” (236). Literally, when smelling alcohol many people have to lean back because of its strength. This also helps to show how Mary feels about her parents drinking. Other then the obvious fact that she is dumping the alcohol down the drain, she also cannot stand what it does to them. She mentions that she is surrounded by poisons, yet that smell she cannot stand. Partially that smell is associated with her negative feelings about her parents drinking.

Karr states that the “brown liquor” seemed dangerous to even breathe showing her unfavorable feelings toward it through the sense of smell. There is a theme of alcohol being related to negative events or feelings. There was alcohol involved during the night of the mother’s breakdown, when Hector’s sister Purty is attacked, and also when mother threatens to shoot Hector. Mary not liking the smell of alcohol is related to those bad experiences, along with always having to take care of her mother. Ultimately it is the reason why Lecia and Mary decided to stay with the mother rather then go back to Texas with Daddy. There is resent in Mary’s mind about alcohol, and it is described by her hating the smell of it, even though she lives near many other poisons or bad smells in the atmosphere.

Another example of how Karr uses smell to help with her descriptions is when Mary and Lecia finally get back to Leechfield and see their Daddy again. Karr uses the smell of coffee to say that it brought her whole former Daddy back. She states right after, “I knew the solvent he used to strip grease from his hands, and the Lava soap applied with a fingernail brush.”(262). In this description, Mary associates the smell to all the things she once knew about her father. This happens a lot to people when they are apart from something they love, whether it is the smell of an activity, a loved person, or even a certain food. She uses the smell of coffee to bring her dad right back to everything that she was angry at herself for forgetting. This is enhancing the good feelings that Karr is trying to describe in this paragraph.

Karr uses smell to conjure her dad up early also, when in her mother’s bar. Through the alcohol fumes and smoke Mary gets the image of her father after she is handed a black eye from Big Bertha’s boyfriend. She takes comfort in what she believes her imaginary father would have told her after she got punched. She wasn’t naïve enough to think that it was really Daddy, but the smell brought her back to him, perhaps the liars club, and she felt relieved that he was there with her even though she was alone. In this instance she uses smell to remember something good, or enhance describing her feeling of being at ease.

Karr uses smell to help her bring to life the feeling that she is describing. She can do it through both negative and positive ways, as shown through the examples. Karr allows the smell of certain objects to lead into many different feelings, or even more imagery.