Juice

I suppose I'll start by saying that this short story is extremely odd.  It is pretty clear to me that the subject is schizophrenic or something of that nature.  The writing is disorganized and her perception of the world and society is very strange.  On page 31, she says, "I looked that night as a ten-year-old would.  The next time I looked, a few weeks later, I was twelve."  Obviously, this doesn't make any sense.  She also describes the signs that her sister makes and claims that they are art and that people go to view them.  I think her perception of the people looking at the signs are to appreciate the art of them rather than their purpose of directing people. 

I'm having a hard time understanding the purpose of this story.  It seems like its sort of taking a snapshot of her mind and what is going on inside.  The story jumps around to several places.  She describes the mountains by her home and she seems to be aroused by them. Later, she is on a train and then chasing her next lover down an alley.  The part at the end where she calls every time she goes to bed "sleeps" is very strange.  Maybe she doesn't ever sleep and that's why she has this crazy perception of the world around her?  "Once every two hundred and eighty sleeps the person's mind clears.  The places of things make sense.  She thinks, I am alive and so all these things." (Pg 59) Clearly, she is not getting any sleep because she is out of her mind!

The writing style toward the end seems to represent her mind flow.  The writing becomes separated with no real paragraphs, just statements.  Also, the statements are odd and unrelated which seems to be representative of her thought processes. 

Overall, I did not have a very clear understanding of the point of the story.  So far, I just believe that the subject is out of her mind and the writer is attempting to capture that through her writing style with the statement of random facts and the ways in which the story jumps around.