Juice Response

    I enjoyed Juice, by Renee Gladman, for the most part. The story was very short but it was interesting. I appreciated the futuristic aspect and point of view from which the story was told. I found that the chapter about the meaning behind Juice, Proportion Surviving, was my favorite. I found that it helped me understand the story more and I found that I related to it.
    The story is about these people in a town that was hit by many plagues and the people in the story are the survivors. They were split up into these tribe-like groups where they travel around looking for resources and things to help them remember the past. In Proportion Surviving, the subject of juice is brought up. The simplicity of something we all take for granted adds to the emotion we get from feeling the pain and agony of these characters. At the beginning of the chapter, there is talk about how many people dream of the daytime and morning, how everyone is excited for the sun to come up. My theory behind the fact that everyone loves the morning and that there is so much talk about the juice we all drink in the morning is that these people are hoping that, in the morning, they will wake up from this terrible dream, or what they hope to be a dream. Usually, the morning symbolizes a new day, a new beginning. For these people, that is all they want; a new beginning. On page 24, the main character says, "I was in my juice" after explaining a certain type of happiness. I felt that that directed toward using juice as another way of meaning morning, and a fresh start.