Part 2

"He took it, let her light it with a red plastic tube. "You sleepin' okay, Case? You look tired -"

[SEM, ACT]

No particular word, but the sequence of actions in this passage evoke motherhood. Linda Lee gives [ACT: 1: giving] a cigarette to Case, lights it for him [ACT: 2: helping], and then asks him a very motherly question [ACT: 3: inquiring]. This sequence of actions does not denote motherhood - Linda Lee is not Case's mother. However, the connotation of the sequence seems to put Linda Lee in the role of Case's mother, and evokes for Case himself "the smell of her skin in the overheated darkness of a coffin near the port, her fingers locked across the small of his back" (Gibson, 9) which, in turn, seems to evoke the womb.

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