E03: Critical Reading-edwardnihlman

“Caleb has been home since 2006, way more than enough time for Brannan to catch his symptoms.”

-By saying that Caleb being home since 2006 is “more than enough time for Brannan to catch his symptoms,” it is almost as if the author is saying that with enough time, anyone living with a PTSD victim will eventually inherit PTSD themselves.
-The author also says that Brannan is “catching his symptoms,” in order to further relate it to the idea of it being contagious like the flu or some other physical illness. This could be misleading, because if anything, Brannan would be developing her own personal PTSD. In other words, her symptoms would be associated with a violent husband rather than Caleb whose symptoms would be related to the violence found in war.

“The house, in a subdivision a little removed from one of many shopping centers in a small town in the southwest corner of Alabama, is often quiet as a morgue.”

-The author compares the house that Brannan lives to a morgue to accentuate how quiet the house is. There are many other options that the author could have compared the quietness of the house to, but she went for a morgue seemingly, because of how the house and the morgue also share a sense of tragedy.

“You can hear the cat padding around. The air conditioner whooshes, a clock ticks.”

-The grammar of this sentence is rather disorienting. It is clear what the author is expressing, but is not written correctly or clearly. What the author is trying to express however, is that the house is so quiet that any noises that are heard are more noticeable than normal. This description gives off an unpleasant atmosphere rather than a peaceful one, because of the author’s earlier comparison to a morgue.

“When a sound erupts—Caleb screaming at Brannan because she’s just woken him up from a nightmare, after making sure she’s at least an arm’s length away in case he wakes up swinging—the ensuing silence seems even denser.”

-This sentence only further builds the quiet nature of the house as distressing. The author unnecessarily adds the detail of Brannan having to stay an arm’s length away from Caleb when he wakes up. While it does further describe the stress she goes through, it is arguably unnecessary in this context since the topic at hand are the sounds that are made within the house.

“Even when everyone’s in the family room watching TV, it’s only connected to Netflix and not to cable, since news is often a trigger.”

-While the author clearly was implying that news is a trigger to Caleb, because of how it will occasionally cover wars, and maybe even the war Caleb fought in, it does not outright say it. If a reader is uninformed enough, they may have no clue as to why the news is a trigger to Caleb. This lack of detail is generally seen through the article and definitely takes away from the author’s argument.