The mother didn’t want to be reminded of what she lost the day of the storm. She lost her child, her husband, and was injured. … Her mother then
saved her
by climbing and leaping from a tree to get to the window of the roof to bring the narrator down from the flaming house.
Why did the narrator return to her mother the leap?
Why has the narrator returned to her childhood home?
She returns to care for and read to her blind mother
.
What did the mother do for a living in the leap?
In the first “leap,”
the mother saves her own life, thereby ensuring the birth of the narrator later on
. In this instance, the narrator’s mother was performing as part of a blindfold trapeze act called the Flying Avalons when a storm hit the circus tent.
What attracts the father to the mother in the leap?
The narrator’s father is also attracted to Anna because they
share a mutual love of books and reading
. In fact, it was the doctor who taught Anna to read (she was illiterate when they met) and bought her her first book.
What do you learn about the narrator’s mother in the exposition of the leap?
What do we find out about the mom in the exposition?
She is blind and she used to be in a trapeze act called the Flying Avalons
. “lips destined to never meet again” is an example of what?
What does the narrator in the leap mean when she says she owes her mother her existence three times?
The narrator means that
her mother saved her own life or her daughter’s life three times
. The story describes a trapeze artist’s daughter. She explains the impact her mother had on her life, specifically by saving her life.
What did Anna’s second husband teach Anna?
Anna’s second husband taught her to
read and write while she was in the hospital
. Anna was injured because of a storm when she was performing her circus act. It was there that she met the narrator’s father, who inspected the set of her broken arm.
What is the most dramatic event in the leap?
The most dramatic event in “The Leap” is
the mother’s rescue of the daughter from her burning bedroom
. While the leap of Mrs. Avalon under the circus tent is, indeed, dramatic, it is not described with the amount of detail that is present in the daughter’s narration of her own rescue by her mother.
What point of view is the leap?
“The Leap” by Louise Erdrich follows an autobiographical story line. The story is told as a flashback by the narrator and daughter of Anna Avalon, a former trapeze artist in a circus. The point of view is
first person with the daughter beginning the
story in present time…
How does the narrator feel about the sister they never met the leap?
In “The Leap ,” the
narrator has conflicting feelings about her sister
. On the one hand, the narrator feels no connection towards her: she refers to her as “the child,” for example, and does not seem to share a familial bond with her: “She was a girl, but I rarely…
Why is the leap a good title for the story?
“The Leap” is a good title for this story
because of the many leaps, both literal and figuartive that take place in the story
. The first leap that takes place is literal; this occurs when the narrator’s mother leaps from the trapeze rope in the burning circus tent to save her life.
What parts of the story are most suspenseful in the leap?
Having the dead sibling in the story
makes the event more suspenseful and at first you believe the young baby was the narrator. 7. Both the narrator and her mother reacted to matters of life and death in this story.
At what point does the narrator first introduce a detailed flashback?
In the short story, “The Leap,” by Louise Erdrich, the narrator begins her detailed flashback in
paragraph three
. She states at the onset of that paragraph, “I owe her [her mother] my existence three times”. The narrator then begins to recount in detail the three times her mother, Anna, saved her life.
What happens first in the leap?
In “The Leap,” the first event in the chronology is
when the narrator’s mother, Anna Avalon, saves herself, seven months pregnant, after her flying trapeze act goes wrong
. Her husband, Harold Avalon, dies when, mid-act, lightning strikes the central tent pole and brings it crashing down.
What is an example of flashback in the leap?
The flashbacks
tell of how her then pregnant mother’s choice to save her life and the life of her first yet unborn child led to the narrator’s eventual birth
, which followed the marriage between her mother and the doctor who help her recover from her tragic burns and injuries–the mother’s first child didn’t survive …
What does the narrator learn from the leap?
In the story “The Leap” by Louise Erdrich, readers learn that the narrator
shows her love by returning home to entertain her blind mother by reading to her
. She is haunted by visions of the fire her mother rescued her from. She is also grateful to her mother for saving her life.
