Rhetorical Strategies

• “ ‘He married two of them.’ Suddenly I understood: crazy women”(33).- Parallelism
• “ ‘ Just because we live like animals’ Mrs. Peavy replied”(38).- Simile
• “I could see the satin sash on Mrs. Peavey’s pale dress as she danced around a candle-covered Christmas tree. And I could hear the string quartet that came every Sunday in the music room”(41). – Imagery
• “ ‘Don’t go to bed too late, Pussycat’ she’d say gaily, walking out the door in a cloud of perfume”(44).- Euphemism
• I imagined myself floating down the stairs in front of the Winged Victory like Audrey Hepburn in Funny Face”(51).- Allusion
• “Disaster was always simmering just below the surface and we cherished every peaceful moment with my mother”(51)- Trope
• “It looked like something from Charles Dickens books we had been reading in Mrs. Perrin’s class”(55)- Allusion
• “On Mars even my name was different”(57)- Metaphor
The author compares Hortence, her father’s first wife, to her mother. Both of the women were young and beautiful, while one was clearly insane and not aloud to be spoken of, Ruth’s mother was also crazy which slowly makes an appearance in each chapter.
Ruth Reichl does also a great job at being very descriptive throughout her writing. In the novel one can get lost in the vivid images of the cuisine that she encounters. Describing her childhood with bright images is a way she is able to connect to the readers and maintaining their attention.