Compare And Contrast Sticky Fingers And White Lies By Erin Smith

Sticky Fingers and White Lies in My Eyes The short, “White Lies”, written by Erin Murphy has its likeness to “Sticky Fingers” by Patti Smith; portraying a young girl going through a life molding experience. They only differ because of situation and how they are handled. In “White Lies”, you see a mother that doesn’t address her daughter’s issue and works around it to decrease the severity of the problem. In “Sticky fingers” Smith writes of a girl who struggles but deals with her situation. Both essays leave the audience with the choice of how to not only judge the little girls’ decisions but also a look at how their mother’s nurturing styles helped in the development of the girls’ morals. I find that by giving the audience a look at the situations

“When I was ten years old, I lived with my family in a small ranch house in rural South Jersey” (Smith 258). Patricia speaks of her situation with a maturity but in her childlike nature she does not understand all that well how money is handled. Smith acknowledges that by including “I did not understand my mother’s mounting anxiety” (258). Despite that, there is sense that she knows her mom cannot buy her everything she wants. Even knowing this, she still feels she can still ask her mother for things rather than just stealing them first. Though she ultimately steals in the end, it is easy to see that it is not in her nature to do such

While in comparison the audience sees Connie, who doesn’t have a good surrounding in the first place. From what she learns, she accepts her situation and even lets the people who tormented her, rather than welcomed her, into her life. The greatest disconnect with this way of thinking, is that once she’s older as she sees that someone doesn’t agree with her she will do whatever it takes to fit into whatever they think is right. When she might be right it will not matter because the people plucking at her are always right. Even in the essay there is nothing wrong with Connie except that she does not fit the “something was either perfect or not” (Murphy 1) philosophy that the so “dedicated” teacher instilled in the