Watch Me

Content Warning: This section of the guide includes discussion of disordered eating, graphic violence, illness, and death.

“It’s still strange to see the birds. They fill the sky with sound and color, rattling roofs and branches. All around us evergreens spiral skyward, never surrendering to the seasons. It’s always damp here; viridescent; cold. Lakes shimmer unprovoked. Distant mountain ranges seem painted in watercolors, layers of teeth made translucent by fog. The warm and well-fed have been known to call this land beautiful.”

The imagery in this passage juxtaposes the setting’s natural beauty with the oppressive social system that exists within it. The use of words like “viridescent” and “translucent” adds a poetic quality, a stylistic choice that characterizes Rosa’s narrative style. The landscape is personified by the description of the “teeth.” It also subtly establishes the motif of rich versus poor with Rosa’s comment that implies that the “warm and well-fed” have time to appreciate beauty, while the rest of them do not.

“She has my head in a surprisingly firm grip, my neck open and exposed to her blade, but I can feel her breath against my skin and it’s messing with my head.”

The juxtaposition of danger and attraction in James’s thoughts creates a tense atmosphere. The phrase “messing with my head” conveys James’s vulnerability and confusion, both physically and emotionally. This confusion persists throughout the story and is not resolved by the time it ends, illustrating the complexity of relationships in a dystopian world and developing the theme of Reconnecting With One’s Humanity Through Empathy as James shows early signs of beginning to see Rosa as an individual like himself.