Floating In My Mother's Palm

In Hegi's Floating In My Mother's Palm, the author gives us the experience of journeying with Hanna as she discovers her hometown from the point of view of Trudi Montag, a female dwarf who runs the local pay-library. From Trudi's point of view there are few illusions or secrets left about the people of Burgdorf. Trudi knows everything about everyone, specially the things most people would like to keep hidden. Throughout the story, Trudi's reactions and well of information knit the story together. Often her revelations have a major impact on Hanna or others, like when Rolf discovers he is the illegitimate son of an American soldier. Yet, Trudi's revelations not only act as a framing device throughout Hanna's journey, they also help her on a parallel journey she is undertaking. Hanna is an adolescent and experiences her first kiss and her first awakenings of adulthood in the story. Her mother's death and other experiences in the novel allow her to become herself in ways she never knew existed, "But of course it didn't work that way, and it only occurred to me much later that the summer I was fourteen I had saved a life-not the life of a stranger as I had imagined-but the life I had taken for granted and which, in the years to come, I would take for granted again" (Hegi 187).

Trudi Montag is a dwarf who inherited the local pay-library in her forties when her father died. She is the town crier. Good news or bad, Trudi knows

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er let Trudi forget the truth about her self. As a dwarf she is often the victim of cruel and insensitive treatment from others. When she was a little girl she used to have patrons of the library tell her father what a shame it was she was different, "The poor little thing" (Hegi 20). On top of this, there is the town scandal where Trudi herself is concerned. She had an encounter with a naked man at a swimming hole in town and to the present day the people believe she would have ended up in some manner of disgrace had her father not rescued her. To Trudi it was a romantic encounter, one she will never forget and holds close to her heart as her one memory of love. To the townsfolk, the only thing Trudi would have been good enough for that day was getting "herself raped or killed. But not married" (Hegi 24). Trudi and Hanna have a deeper bond than the other townsfolk have with Trudi. Trudi is seen for who she really is by Hanna, a nice, fun, educated woman who has taste in clothing and walks with the assurance of a beautiful woman. Hanna knows that in Trudi's mind she is six feet tall. When asked what kind of man she believes the stranger Trudi encounters might have been, Hanna answers, "Someone who-who saw her�and that

Category: Literature - F