Cold sweat trickles down Kate's back as she stands over the hospital bed, watching the mother she cares for slowly pass away. The droning beep of the monitoring heart machine pierces through the air. Kate kisses her mother one last time, wiping warm tears from her watery eyes, and sluggishly begins to leave. Step by step out of the door the pain intensifies in her heart, but Kate must keep staying strong and move on. A new chapter of her life begins here. Much like Kate, Anna Quindlen undergoes with the catastrophic death of her mother dying of cancer, leaving her arriving at college with an entire new perspective. Her significant childhood and maturement, experiencing the death of her mother, and giving birth to three children influenced Anna Quindlen with her writings.
Growing up and maturing as a young lady and raised into the exquisite author she remains today, Anna Quindlen voices her opinion in her works. As a teenager, the road to success appeared bumpy when Quindlen attempted suicide twice. She wanted to get away from her life and pass on to a peaceful place. Her suicide undertakes wrought a new, positive attitude for Quindlen entering education and her new careers ("Anna"). Entering college Quindlen decided to take care of her ill mother. Ought to furlough from school for awhile and reside in taking care of her mother, she spent months by her mother's side, "learn[ing] the ugly truths about death from cancer" ("Anna"). Quindlen
refuses to let people walk all over her, unlike Fran in her novel Black and Blue, and instead Quindlen takes action writing on abortion and childcare ("Anna" 480). In Black and Blue, Bobby abuses Fran and takes advantage of her, with his voice "like a confessor, like a seducer" persuading Frannie to believe situations far from the truth (Quindlen, Black 3). Disagreeing with controversial topics, Quindlen displays her belief in the power of equal liberty and fair treatment to women by writing about it. All the troubles Quindlen faced growing up, put her in circumstances that instigate topics she chooses to write on ("Anna" 480). Struggles and fights Anna Quindlen overcame throughout her life and the ideas and opinions learned as a child influenced her works.
A tragic event struck Quindlen when her mother passed away with ovarian cancer and influenced her whole world.
Reading this book has been interesting and heartbreaking experience. A Year of Magical Thinking, a journey through the grieving process. While dealing with the death of her husband, she is confronted with the sickness of her only child. This book touches me, and it makes me think of what would happen if my loved one died. This paper is a reflection of my thoughts and feelings about this woman’s journey that has been explored by book and video. I will also explore the author’s adjustment process, and how she views her changed self.
Anna Quindlen’s short story Mothers reflects on the very powerful bond between a mother and a daughter. A bond that she lost at the age of nineteen, when her mother died from ovarian cancer. She focuses her attention on mothers and daughters sharing a stage of life together that she will never know, seeing each other through the eyes of womanhood. Quindlen’s story seems very cathartic, a way of working out the immense hole left in her life, what was, what might have been and what is. As she navigates her way through a labyrinth of observations and questions, I am carried back in time to an event in my life and forced to inspect it all over again.
However, of more importance is Anna’s lack of communication with Peter. A large part of what makes Anna herself is her ability and love of creating stories. When her husband does not share this, Anna finds this challenging, and lets it become a barrier to communication. “His face set in the pained expression he wears for conversations like this – “What ifs” speculations. When Jennifer and I sit in a restaurant making up stories about the people around us, he closes his eyes, just as he’s doing now” (Wallace, 317).
Hampered by the need for secrecy, Fran slowly overcomes impoverishment, loneliness and fear to make new emotional connections. But the price she pays for this triumph is terrible, and all too real. Above all, Quindlen is wise and human. Her understanding of the complex anatomy of marital relationships, of the often painful bond of maternal love and of the capacity to survive tragedy and carry on invests this moving novel in the clarion ring of truth. References http://www.randomhouse.com/features/annaquindlen/ (Black And Blue By Anna Quindlen) http://www.bookbrowse.com/dyn_/title/titleID/400.htm (Book Browse) http://www.oprah.com/obc/pastbooks/anna_quindlen/obc_pb_19980409_rev.jhtml;jsessionid=XQFV2DGW142PRLARAYFCFEQ
Mary Flannery O’Connor was born on March 25, 1925 in Savannah Georgia to Edward and Regina O’Connor. She was their only child. Her father was a real estate agent, and a veteran of the World War. Mrs. O’Connor, the mother, was pretty much a stay at home mother. She was Flannery’s biggest inspiration. In the early years of Flannery’s life, she attended Vincent Grammar school and Sacred Heart Parochial school for Girls. During this time, her father took a job with the Federal Housing Administration in Atlanta, Georgia. The family stayed in Atlanta for a while, but once her father was diagnosed with lupus in 1940, they moved to Milledgeville, Georgia. Mr. O’Connor later died in 1941-shortly after his diagnosis. This talented young lady attended Peabody High School, and graduated in 1942. After graduating from high school, she went on to attend Georgia State College for Women in Milledgeville. There, she obtained the titles of art editor of the college newspaper, The Colonmade, and the editor of the college literary magazine, The Corinthian. She graduated in 1945 with a degree in social science.
O’ Connor life had a significant change, when she attended High School; O’ Connor Stared writing and drawing Cartoons for the School Paper (Flannery). Her cartooning experiencing would have a profound effect on her style of writing. Even though she relocated in Milledgeville she continues attending Christian Schools, because her parents were strong Roman Catholics. Sadly in her early teenage years, the doctors eventually revealed that she was suffering from lupus erythematous, the same disease that killed her father Edward Francis O’ Connor. Instead of decay for her illness, she decided to push the new challenges she had on her way and focused first of all on her educ...
Mary Flannery O’Connor was born in 1925 in Savannah, Georgia. She was an only child, and her parents were deeply religious Roman Catholics. She was educated at the Women’s College of Georgia and the State University of Iowa. While she was at college, she wrote short stories which were published. During this time her father died of lupus, a blood disease that would eventually claim her life as well. After she was diagnosed, she moved to Milledgville, Georgia, for treatment of the disease. She continued writing and published two novels, Wise Blood and The Violent Bear it Away, as well as two collections of short stories, A Good Man is Hard to Find and Everything That Rises Must Converge. She died from Lupus in 1964 (Charters, 1079).
In Amy Hempel’s Short Story “Going,” we take part in a journey with the narrator through loss, coping, memory, experience, and the duality of life. Throughout the story we see the narrator’s struggle through coping with the loss of his mother, and how he moves from a mixture of depression, denial, and anger, to a form of acceptance and revelation. The narrator has lost his mother to a fire three states away, and goes on a reckless journey through the desert, when he crashes his car and ends up hospitalized. Only his thoughts and the occasional nurse to keep him company. He then reaches a point of discovery and realizations that lead to a higher understanding of mortality, and all of the experiences that come with being alive.
Deborah Ross cleverly writes the article in a first person narrative; this enables readers to actively engage with the topic since first person narratives form personal and emotional connections between the author and the reader. Through the use of first person narrative, Deborah creatively pens the gruesome moment of her life when she turned forty. The reader, expected to a female near...
Flannery O’Connor was a unique writer whose personal life was as unusual as her short stories. From her zealous and strict Catholic faith, to her love of peacocks, she is possibly the most interesting female writers of the 20th century. It takes a bold writer to put religion into their writing and it takes and even bolder one to be a female writer and put religion into their writing. Not only was Flannery O’Connor a bold writer, she set the bar for the writers of her present time and of the future. Her battle with lupus tested her faith and her diligence toward writing on numerous occasions and although in the end it took her life, the life of her work continues to live on.
Terrible heartbreak plagues the reader: “And the mother’s shrieks of wild despair / Rise ...
Constant oppression by her controlling husband leads to the story’s protagonist eventually succumbing to Identity loss. “If a physician of high standing, and one’s own husband, assures friends and relatives that there is really nothing the matter with one but temporary nervous depression-a slight hysterical tendency-what is one to do?” (519). Here Gilman illustrates early on that the woman has no voice of her own even in her own mental state. The last part of the question, “what is one to do”, seems to allude to the fact that has given in to the overassertive voice of her husband. Gilman shows us another example of our heroine’s loss of identity due to her “loving” husband’s smothering attention. “He is very careful and loving, and hardly lets me stir without special direction” (520). John’s overbearing demeanor is viewed as careful and loving, and it is quite clear that the narrator is losing her own voice and identity. Justifying his behavior out of love he continues to belittle his wife until she loses all identity. It is the battle to regain her identity and to let her voice be heard that gives us our conflict between John and his wife.
Holly Janquell is a runaway. Wendelin Van Draanan creates a twelve year old character in the story, Runaway, that is stubborn and naive enough to think she can live out in the streets alone, until she is eighteen.She has been in five foster homes for the past two years. She is in foster care because her mother dies of heroin overdose. In her current foster home, she is abused, locked in the laundry room for days without food, and gets in even more trouble if she tries to fight back. Ms.Leone, her schoolteacher, could never understand her, and in Holly’s opinion, probably does not care. No one knows what she is going through, because she never opens up to any one. Ms. Leone gives Holly a journal at school one day and tells her to write poetry and express her feelings. Holly is disgusted. But one day when she is sitting in the cold laundry room, and extremely bored, she pulls out the diary, and starts to write. When Holly can take no more of her current foster home, she runs, taking the journal with her. The journal entries in her journal, are all written as if she is talking to Ms.Leone, even though she will probably never see her again. Over the course of her journey, Holly learns to face her past through writing, and discovers a love for poetry. At some point in this book, Holly stops venting to Ms. Leone and starts talking to her, almost like an imaginary friend, and finally opens up to her.
woman’s life, from her being a teen to her death in her house. The town’s people did not
She continues in this sequel to talk about the abuse she faced and the dysfunction that surrounded her life as a child and as a teen, and the ‘empty space’ in which she lived in as a result. She talks about the multiple personalities she was exhibiting, the rebellious “Willie” and the kind “Carol”; as well as hearing noises and her sensory problems. In this book, the author puts more emphasis on the “consciousness” and “awareness” and how important that was for her therapeutic process. She could not just be on “auto-pilot” and act normal; the road to recovery was filled with self-awareness and the need to process all the pieces of the puzzle—often with the guidance and assistance of her therapist. She had a need to analyze the abstract concept of emotions as well as feelings and thoughts. Connecting with others who go through what she did was also integral to her