Sacrilege

When Brent moves into DuPont and is just getting to know the people there and how things work, he sings a couple lines from the song "Imagine" in the shower one morning. The nurse, Rose, immediately makes a comment that "it's sacrilege" and he shouldn't sing it (153). Rose asks Brent, "How'd you like it if there was no heaven?" and he replies "fine with me," (153). Rose knows that Brent tried to kill himself by setting himself on fire, and she seems quite religious so she would also know that if you commit suicide you don't go to heaven. So why on earth would she ask him his thoughts on heaven? I realize this is a memoir and its not like there's hidden symbolism behind it or anything, but it got me thinking about Brent's views on God and when He appears in other moments of the text.

The narrator uses the phrase "oh God" very frequently in the story once you really start to pay attention.  When he goes on his big date night with Tina to see a movie, Runyov exclaims "oh God, Bill Murray is so funny" and again "what is that? Oh God. That's not gasoline, is it?" (129, 130). One use is to express joy and the other is to express discomfort or dislike.

God comes up again when the narrator is masturbating in his room at Children's, Brent thinks "oh God. Oh God. Oh God," as he well, you know (113). Kind of an inappropriate place for God, but here the character brings Him up to express pleasure.

When Brent becomes extremely uncomfortable viewing the video of his parents discussing his accident and lying about the cause of his burns, God shows up again: "Oh God, I have this sudden tightness, this sticking feeling in my chest like I've been breathing Krazy Glue," (121). Here the character is expressing extreme discomfort and confusion, yet he uses the same expression that meant many other things in different contexts.

At this point I was kind of like, okay this kid obviously puts no meaning behind the word God because of the way he uses it... Basically I've just wasted a blog post on something that is completely irrelevant. But then I remembered another place where God shows up in the story!

Right after Brent gets his new skin grafts and Calvin takes him for a bath the young boy is screaming all kinds of profanities, he includes God in many of them. Once he calms down he apologizes to Calvin, then says to himself "if there is a God, I hope he understands too" (95). This made me realize that Brent did acknowledge some weight behind the word God. It doesn't change the ways in which he uses the word in other contexts, its just interesting to see that semi-religious part of an eighth grader. It shows the reader that this isn't just a story of a boy recovering from a horrible event, but also a narrative of a confused teenager just trying to figure it all out. Brent's not sure if there is a God, he's not sure if he likes that one girl, he's not really sure about a lot of things. He is really just in those awkward middle school years where no one really gets it. The uncertainty that he shows through his experiences with God as a word and as a higher being is a subtle reminder to the reader that we're not just dealing with burned-up-Brent but regular-middle-schooler-Brent as well.