The three essays in this week's reading selection included "Carpet is Mungers", "Toy Children", and "Music is My Bag". While the stories in each essay were quite different from each other, they all described something she felt that could possibly hold her back from becoming the person she wanted in life. In "Carpet is Mungers" she relates her dislike for carpet with her dislike for the people she has stereotyped to be "carpet owners". In "Toy Children" she states that dolls frighten her because she sees herself in them, forever trapped in infancy. In "Music is My Bag" she tells us that by entering the "music is my bagdom" she was unable to enjoy other things in her life because music had become her life.
She expressed her dislike for carpet by comparing it to Stephen Mungers, a boy she went out with when she was twelve. She wrote that while she was with him, she felt like she could never be the person she really wanted to be and carpet, somehow, made her feel the same way. I believe that she had a certain image in her own mind that she had created throughout her life of the stereotypical "kind" of people who owned houses with wall-to-wall carpet and this was someone that she never wanted to become. She prevented becoming "one of those people" by always avoiding houses with carpet and people with carpet. She even broke off a relationship she cared greatly about because she was too afraid that the man she cared about could make her change, and possibly become someone she was afraid to become.
In "Toy Children" we learn that she was never fond of dolls. She felt sorry for young children because they we"re able to control their own lives. In her eyes, they were forced to play games, listen to ridiculous songs, and participate in unnecessary activities, like Tiny Tot Tumbling. Daum wrote that dolls frighten her so much because (dolls are) "Forever trapped in babyhood, they threaten the very essence of life's possibilities" (101).
