A Separate Whole.

As I continue to read, I’m becoming more aware and interested in this idea of containment.  Particularly, I am wondering if containment could be synonymous with integrity, wholeness, or what it means to be complete. Like Lawrence, there are several “half” descriptions. Richard “was half-laughing” as Molly similarly displays a “half-compassionate look” (28-29). Perhaps these glimpses of “half”, suggesting not whole, complete, or authentic, simply indicate a “cracked” or broken marriage; Molly and Richard now exist as different halves of failed whole. Conversely, Molly and Anna’s “interchangeability” could hints at integrity. Does this mean that a “cracking-open” experience that Anna alludes to happens at a specific point or time in a person’s life? Does it have to be the breaking up of a type of relationship (between people or the self)? The idea of containment reminds me of the placement, patterns, and meaning of the brackets. It almost makes more sense for the brackets to frame the notebooks rather than the narrator’s descriptions of the notebooks. Or maybe the brackets liberate Anna’s notebooks; through the confinements of reality are juxtaposed with the free flowing nature of the thoughts that the trill throughout the pages of the individual notebooks. In this sense, like Allie mentioned in class, Anna’s stories and the notebooks are two halves of the larger “golden notebook.”   Perhaps containment relates to the act of building or creating something for the immediate purpose of tearing it down. Although I think the brackets are to be confronted with the notion of cracking up. Also, maybe it’s just the narrator who obtains these “half” feelings and instead of contain, these brackets are dividing, marginalizing,  slicing, and separating.