While reading “The First Day” by Edward P Jones the first thing that struck out to me was the sentence where the author states “long before I learned to be ashamed of my mother”. This struck out to me because the author was claiming to be ashamed of the mom which is something that shouldn’t happen when the mom did everything for them. The author was ashamed of her mom because later on it then indirectly states that the mom cant read or write when it came to fill out a form stating “1 can’t read it. I don’t know how to read or write, and I’m asking you to help me.”. The author is most likely embarrassed because right after the women couldn’t understand the mom she look toward the author asking if they can help her. An inference I can make out of her first day of school is that this her a new beginning for her and she’s excited to have a new fresh.
As we discussed in class, “The First Day” is a work of fiction. The author, Edward Jones, and the narrator are not the same person. It’s really interesting how many of us reacted strongly to the daughter feeling ashamed of the mother. It’s worth thinking more about where this comes from and whether this is something that all children might feel at one time or another.