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We Were Liars Analysis

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What is the line between reality and illusion? This absurdity is examined in Emily Jenkin’s thrilling story, We Were Liars, as she introduces a young lady by the name of Cadence Sinclair Eastman, a torn girl with several problems. She gives the reader a story of how she turned into this shell of a person she once was, and really wants to give her side of it. The Sinclair family are very rich and powerful people. The two owners of the wealth live on a private island, while the rest of the family only visits during the summer. The eldest kids of the parents are called the liars. They consist of Johnny, Mirren, and Cadence(our narrator of the story.) One summer there is a new arrival, Gat, also one of the liars and love interest of Cadence. On …show more content…

Fairy-tale books help Cadence really escape from the insanity of the Sinclair family. The books help her to communicate what is really happening in her family in her own way. When Cadence was eight her dad gave her fairy-tale books(E.Lockhart 16,1.). Since Cadence came back from europe she has been writing fairy-tale variations. Cadence used the fairy tale books as a way of telling the reader what was going on in her family. The three princesses were Carrie, Bess, and Penny. The king was grandad Harris. In each of the tales something bad happens that is related to the accident, although Cadence does not realize it.Not only do the fairy-tales symbolize the greed and insanity in the family, but also the Clairmont house is the main symbol. The Sinclair sisters attach some sentimental value to the material objects, but what they really cared about was its monetary value. After all, the aunts trust funds are running out, which means they will have to rely on the frogs, pearl necklaces, ivory statues, and the boston houses value to secure their financial future. Clairmont is the main sources of this problem. “Clairmont seemed like the seat of the patriarchy...We figured if the house was gone, and the paperwork and data inside it gone, and all the objects they fought about gone, the power would be gone.”(E.Lockhart 70,18.) The Sinclairs do very well at hiding who they really are, but these two symbols really show the reader who they are and what matters to them on a surface

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