Chapter 7 Analysis

• What does the author reveal about Mia Warren in Chapter 7? 

In chapter 7, we begin to see more of Mia’s personality and look at the world through her lens. We see her in the role of a mother, as a cleaner, and almost in some ways as a friend. For example, in the first extract, we can see her silently comforting Izzy with a simple act of kindness, i.e a sandwich. She has a very gentle approach to helping and giving advice and truly empathises with the characters. We also see that she is similar to Izzy in many ways, not bound by social expectation and ‘radical’ in heart to a certain extent.

 

• How are we meant to respond to her as readers? 

I feel like we are meant to empathise and relate to her to some extent, and in this extract especially, we develop a sort of fondness for her and her actions. I believe this as the author makes Mia the one person who treats Izzy without any real prejudice and gives her the time of day without necessarily being obliged to. She treats Izzy like she would anyone else, and that’s why readers see her in a good light

 

• How does she contrast with Elena?

As mentioned by Izzy in the above extracts, Elena set many rigidly drawn restrictions around her every move. Mia Warren is contrasting as she educates Izzy about what to do and allows her to adopt it into her own ideas/actions. This allows for more independence and creativity. Mia also takes the time to understand what the child is going through from their perspective, and not just make claims according to what her view is straight off the bat, while Elena most probably punished Izzy for being suspended without actually hearing or empathising with the reasoning behind it.