Week Six: Description Over Everything

The personal story,Growing up, with help, by Lena Dunham opens with a thematic statement: “I am eight, and I am afraid of everything”. 

This initially drew me in because I can remember displaying hypochondriac tendencies from a young age.  

The first time was when I took a bath on my own. I sat in the tub for (what felt like) hours. I played with a Barney playhouse bath toy and had foam in the shape of a cone on my tiny head. As I sat a plastic starfish on top of Barney’s castle, I noticed something peculiar about my hands. They were prune; prune meant old and old meant death. I screeched with all the power from my petite lungs, “MOM!”. There was no answer. “I am dying.” I thought, “I am dying, and I am so young, and… I have to get out of this tub!” I placed my Princess Ariel towel on the iced, linoleum bathroom tile. I laid naked on the towel and stared at the ceiling. I wallowed at my shrunken raisin hands, thought about Heaven, and my pet Goldfish. (I’m dying. I’m dying. I’m dying.) My little heart fluttered. The bath water was frozen in the tub. I was so young, so naïve, but I knew I was dying. As I closed my eyes, my mother busted through the door like a fireman. I showed her my pathetic pruned hands. “That is normal,” she said, “hands and feet can get prune if you stay in the bath too long.” I bawled in her arms; she was confused and distraught. 

I am able to see myself within Dunham’s short memoir due to the behaviors I displayed as a child. She utilizes descriptive details that help me recognize some of the emotions I had as a child. My absolute favorite lines from her piece are: My fourth-grade teacher, Kathy, is my best friend at school. She’s a plump, pretty woman with hair like yellow pipe cleaners. Her clothes resemble the sheets at my grandma’s house, floral but threadbare, and with mismatched buttons. 

Her writing reminds me of the way I described one of my teachers in a past paper, First Day of Freshman Year: 

Out of all the classes I had at school, algebra with Mrs. Dickinson was the absolute worst.  Mrs. Dickinson was an elderly woman in her mid-sixties.  She had wrinkles along her face, and wore a dark, black sweater dress with tall, furry boots.  I could distinctly see a wart on the tip of her chin, and her lips were painted an indigo purple.  She lectured about math as if it was her ex-husband; something that used to bring her joy and happiness, but now, only anger.  “I hate freshman,” her uncanny voice crowed, “each and every one of you will behave in my classroom…or else.”  I wanted to ask her what “or else” meant, but she was standing too close to me, and her breath smelt of tuna fish.  

I adore how descriptive Dunham's writing is because I tend to write with avid description. Dunham definitely writes for her readers to visualize. Truly, after reading this specific piece of her writing I do not feel that I need more background information to understand the struggles she experienced. Dunham states: What happens over the next few months is like the plot of a children’s movie, the kind where a dog finds its owner in spite of insurmountable odds and prohibitive geography. She utilizes vivid literary devices to introduce the reader into the next stage of her life.  Dunham is an extreme truth-teller throughout her story. Her details express her raw, personal emotions and I do not believe that someone non-O.C.D. could have wrote what she did.