Life As We Knew It Journal Prompt 2

Tenuta, Nicole

English IV

Morrell

December 5, 2012

Life As We Knew

It Journal

In Life As We Knew It the main character, Miranda, starts off as a normal high school girl that does not really consider herself much different from the other kids at school. However, after the event, I feel like Miranda starts to doubt herself. Throughout the novel she constantly compares herself to her brother, Matt, and doubts her ability to do things as well or efficient as him. It is almost as if she thinks she is not good enough to help her family through these tough times or even survive herself.

She aslo thinks of her old friends often. Even if she is not directly comparing herself to them, she is still acknowledging their different ways of life. Her friend Samantha, who ends up running off with a forty-year-old man to Nashville, has always been the type of girl who is always surrounded by guys. Miranda did not judge her, but again we found her comparing her own lifestyle with that of her friend Samantha’s. It is not to say that she wanted to be like Samantha but only recognized that that was not the way she would want to live herself.

Miranda’s other close friend, Megan, was your typical “holy-roller”. Miranda took well into account however that Megan had not always been that way. I think she let Megan’s strong belief in religion get to her a little even if she never wanted to admit it. At parts in the novel you find Miranda pondering the idea of heaven and God due to encounters with Megan. There was a subtle hint of guilt in her attitude at these times. Maybe she was guilty that she had eaten the entire bag of chocolate chips that were to be saved for Matt’s birthday or that she was hardly grateful to be alive after a tradgedy like the one that had occured. I think after being influenced by Megan just a little bit, she felt like she was letting down God, even if she did not believe in him.

Extreme panic hits when Miranda is left the only healthy member of her family when everyone else comes down with the flu. The frigid cold outside only makes everything worse for our sick family of four, minus Miranda. It is now clearly up to her to care for her mother and two brothers while they push through their illness, if they even make it through, that is. Matt is no longer able to chop wood for the fire or do anything else for that matter. Miranda and the family have relied on Matt’s strength throughout the entire novel up to this point so it is clear why is immobility is catastrophic.

It is now Miranda’s responsibility to care for the sick family but things only get worse for her when the sunroom they have all been sleeping in rapidly fills with a thick, dark smoke from the wood stove. She quickly drags everyone and their mattresses into the kitchen to save their lungs from suffocating in the harsh fumes. At this point, I think Miranda has realized that she is, in fact, able to do things for herself and her family. She no longer depends on Matt or her mother to take care of her. She has a purpose bigger than just keeping herself alive. She is now responsible for the lives of her family and if that’s not a wake up call to how strong you really are, I’m not sure what is.