A word that I had to look up from Gabrielle Hamilton’s essay “Killing Dinner” is “henpecked” which I found out means “ continually criticized and given by one’s wife or female partners typically used of a man.” This word stuck out to me because of how it was placed in the sentence and how it was connected afterwords with how the son wants to get rid of it and the father agreeing to him killing this chicken.
A passage that struck me was “My dad was animated with disgust at his dropout daughter—so morosos and unfeminine, with the tips of her braids dyed aquamarine, and unable even to kill a chicken properly.” This makes me a bit confused and makes me bring up assumptions about the father and his relationship with his kids. Is he disappointed at his daughter for being a drop out ? And for not being able to kill a chicken or want to learn? Why is she like this? Because of him? The main thing that can be taken from this is the mother’s presence or absence in their lives because she is not mentioned and so this brings up the question of where is the mother and does she play a part in these kids lives? The word “morsosis” struck at me because this word means countable and uncountable so is he saying the daughter is both useless but countable on? The father seems to have a sort of dislike or sense of dismay towards his daughter.