The Beginning of Allison's Uncertainty

In the book “Two or Three Things I Know for Sure” the author Dorothy Allison writes about her family and the women in it. She touches on the roles women play in life and discuses the many things that are kept secret and hidden amongst her family.  Allison uses pictures to emphasize on the details she is writing about. Allison’s book is sort of a family portrait with words. Throughout the book she presents pictures of her family and herself from different years. Allison shows pictures from all different time periods. For instance, Allison has pictures of her mother in her younger and older years and she also presents pictures of herself in her older and younger years.  From reading the beginning of this short novel, I have come to learn that this book is going to speak a lot about family life.

While reading this book, I noticed that there were a lot of things that the author Allison was not sure about when it came to her family. Which brings attention to the significant of the title; she repeats the title in some parts of the book followed by a statement added on. For example, “Two or three things I know for sure, and one of them is the way you can both hate and love something you are not sure you understand.” Allison was referring to how she loves but hates her hometown Greenville, South Carolina. “Cut wet grass, split green apples, baby shit and beer bottles, cheap makeup and motor oil. Everything was ripe everything was rotting” Allison starts off with a nice imagery when describing her hometown then suddenly ends with a negative statement. This shows her uncertainty about certain things, which makes the title important to the book.

When it came to her family life, Allison shows even more uncertainty. For instance, she seemed completely oblivious to what goes on or who is who in her family. When she asked her Mom and Aunt Dot about her family, they gave her very little information like something was being hidden. It seems as if family was a forbidden topic to talk about. After the passage of Allison talking to her Mom and Aunt Dot, Allison states, “Two or three things I know for sure, and one of them is just this—if we cannot name our own we are cut off at the root, our hold on our lives as fragile as seed in a wind.” Again this statement reflects off of the title and shows the things she is just not sure about.