Character Analysis Of The Novel 'The Memory Keepers'

727 Words2 Pages
bulb-icon

Recommended: The memory keepers daughter literary analysis

The Memory keeper's Daughter

"The Memory Keeper's" was written by an extraodinary author, Kim Edwards. This amazing book was released rencently in 2005. This book was written based on a true story in real life. When Kim Edwards came to a church, one of the pastors gave her a story and it inspired her so much that it gives Kim Edwards an another nover in her collection and also the second huge of success right after "The Secrets of a Fire King". I choose this novel because it gives me the best example of making hard decisions and the conflict between thecharacter and self.

Dr. David Henry is the main character in this novel. He is kind and gives his wife a lot of love. Despite all of that, he is a coward. He runs away from his problem. He avoids the things that gives him challenges, things that might give him consequences in life. He works hard and also has a lot of worries everyday. Then a huge event came, he had to help his wife to deliver their twins. It was going perfectly when he saw his son, Paul and when he hold the girl, he noticed that she has Down's Syndrome. He was afraid of
What is good for him is that he can still live his normal life by letting his wife, Norah teaches his son, Paul. If his wife listen and believes in that lie then he only hurts her a little and will help her to live through this sad news. "You gain one, you lose one" This saying fits perfectly in this situation. In order to please himself and his wife, he must lose "something". The "something" right here is his freedom life. He can has his freedom physically but not mentally. He will have to live in the life with worries, regrets, and always stays unstable and also become a sensitive person everytime people randomly mention about their daughter and also has to live with that guilt inside

Show More
Related

  • Literary Analysis Essay On The Memory Keeper's Daughter

    479 Words  | 1 Pages

    Lying and keeping secrets can only hurt someone in the end. This is true for David in the book “The Memory Keeper's Daughter,” written by Kim Edwards. He intentionally deceived others, but his dishonesty was meant for good intentions based on his and his family’s best interest. Or so he thought.

    Read More

  • The Henry Wiggen Novels of Mark Harris

    3728 Words  | 8 Pages

    Henry's first-person narrative is the most important element of these stories. Through it he recounts the events of his life, his experiences with others, his accomplishments and troubles. The great achievement of this narrative voice is how effortlessly it reveals Henry's limited education while simultaneously demonstrating his quick intelligence, all in an entertaining and convincing fashion. Henry introduces himself by introducing his home-town of Perkinsville, New York, whereupon his woeful g...

    Read More

  • The Hunger Of Memory Sparknotes

    618 Words  | 2 Pages

    This book was published in 1981 with an immense elaboration of media hype. This is a story of a young Mexican American who felt disgusted of being pointed out as a minority and was unhappy with affirmative action programs although he had gained advantages from them. He acknowledged the gap that was created between him and his parents as the penalty immigrants ought to pay to develop and grow into American culture. And he confessed that he got bewildered to see other Hispanic teachers and students determined to preserve their ethnicity and traditions by asking for such issues to be dealt with as departments of Chicano studies and minority literature classes. A lot of critics criticized him as a defector of his heritage, but there are a few who believed him to be a sober vote in opposition to the political intemperance of the 1960s and 1970s.

    Read More

  • Character Analysis: Tim O'Brien's The Things They Carried

    952 Words  | 2 Pages

    One of the main characters in the short story “The Things They Carried”, written by Tim O’Brien, is a twenty-four year old Lieutenant named Jimmy Cross. Jimmy is the assigned leader of his infantry unit in the Vietnam War, but does not assume his role accordingly. Instead, he’s constantly daydreaming, along with obsessing, over his letters and gifts from Martha. Martha is a student at Mount Sebastian College in New Jersey, Jimmy’s home state. He believes that he is in love with Martha, although she shows no signs of loving him. This obsession is a fantasy that he uses to escape from reality, as well as, take his mind off of the war that surrounds him, in Vietnam. The rest of the men in his squad have items that they carry too, as a way of connecting to their homes. The story depicts the soldiers by the baggage that they carry, both mentally and physically. After the death of one of his troops, Ted Lavender, Jimmy finally realizes that his actions have been detrimental to the squad as a whole. He believes that if he would have been a better leader, that Ted Lavender would have never been shot and killed. The physical and emotional baggage that Jimmy totes around with him, in Vietnam, is holding him back from fulfilling his responsibilities as the First Lieutenant of his platoon. Jimmy has apparent character traits that hold him back from being the leader that he needs to be, such as inexperience and his lack of focus; but develops the most important character trait in the end, responsibility.

    Read More

  • The Character Of Memory In Harry Mulisch's The Assault

    1003 Words  | 3 Pages

    Harry Mulisch’s, The assault, follows the life of a young boy, Anton, as he grows older trying to recall what happened one tragic night. Anton Steenwijk, a young boy growing up in occupied Haarlem Holland, is handed a unlucky card when his family is taken away from him. Fake Pleog, the Chief Police Inspector for town of Haarlem, whom is also on the Nazi’s side is shot outside their house in the night. Anton spends his whole life trying to figure out what happened that night. Harry Mulisch, the author, puts in the character of “Memory” as an antagonist for Anton’s character. Although memory is not a real character, it is present throughout the entire novel, and helps the story have a purpose. Memory, allows Anton to reach closure, and move on from the life alternating night that happen in his past. The author implements distinct memories throughout the novel for the reader, and the protagonist; to see what he needs to do in order to move on. All the memories, are triggered by encounters with people that were a part of

    Read More

  • Ethical Dilemma In The Memory Keeper's Daughter By Kim Edwards

    1314 Words  | 3 Pages

    For this paper I read the novel The Memory Keeper’s Daughter by Kim Edwards, this novel is told in the span of 25 years, it is told by two characters David and Caroline, who have different lives but are connected through one past decision. The story starts in 1964, when a blizzard happens causing the main character, Dr. David Henry to deliver his own twins. During the delivery, the son named Paul is fine but the daughter named Phoebe has something wrong with her. The doctor realizes that the daughter has Down syndrome, he is shocked and remembers his own childhood when his sister was always sick, her dying at an early age and how that affected his mother. He didn’t want that to happen to his wife, so David told the nurse to bring Phoebe to an institution, so that his wife wouldn’t suffer.

    Read More

  • Recitatif Toni Morrison Character Analysis

    330 Words  | 1 Pages

    The characters are some of the major parts of any narrative. The ways in which they have been developed to satisfy the ideological purpose of the story determines the direction that they take in achieving the roles and the aspects of the stories. Based on this information, the sole purpose of this paper is to determine the characterization of two of the characters in Recicitatif. The paper will develop and explain some of the key ways in which Toni Morrison has developed the characters to satisfy the ideological needs of the novel as well as the development of the major themes that have been portrayed in the novel. The identification of what the character is like through the direct and indirect methods and the ways in which they portray their

    Read More

  • Lies In The Memory Keeper's Daughter

    366 Words  | 1 Pages

    In the very beginning of the book, David Henry makes a decision he will live with for the rest of his life. He gives his newborn daughter away. He justifies this action by saying, “This poor child will most likely have a serious heart defect. A fatal one. I’m trying to spare us all a terrible grief” (Edwards 19). Little did he know, that by telling his wife their daughter died, he would be destroying his relationship with his wife and son. Because of the strain on his relationship with his family, the rest of them go on lying as well. In the end, they all have secrets that tear them

    Read More

  • Turn of the screw

    2738 Words  | 6 Pages

    Throughout Henry’s life he was always questioning things and was also brought into the world with a family that did exactly the same. The family questioned everything and were particularly intrigued in the working of the mind; his brother William, was even named the ‘father of psychology’. Many of Henry’s books dealt with problems of hysteria and stress and how this affected his characters was a frequent theme in his writing.

    Read More

  • Regarding Henry: Conditioning, Memory, and Learning

    491 Words  | 1 Pages

    Henry suffers from retrograde amnesia due to internal bleeding in the part of the brain that controls memory. This causes him to forget completely everything he ever learned. His entire life is forgotten and he has to basically relearn who he was, only to find he didn’t like who he was and that he didn’t want to be that person. He starts to pay more attention to his daughter and his wife and starts to spend more time with them.

    Read More

  • Analysis Of Salvation By Langston Hughes Salvation

    1053 Words  | 3 Pages

    Not only did he stand up to relive the stress that was being put upon the church, he lied to both himself, his aunt, and to the church as a whole. Hughes also faced a tremendous amount of emotional pressures that night. Hughes sat in bed and cried, because he knew what had actually happened that night, he also cried because he was promised that he would see Jesus, and all his sins would be relieved from him. Hughes started to think that something was wrong with himself and that was why Jesus never did come. He did not understand why all the other children were able to be saved but not him. “But I was really crying because I couldn’t bear to tell her that I had lied, that I had deceived everybody in the church, and I hadn’t seen Jesus, and that now I didn’t believe there was a Jesus any more, since he didn’t come to help me” (112), Hughes writes on his predicament. He had no idea what his religious beliefs were anymore, nor did he wish to talk to about it, with anyone, because the entire community believes (including his aunt) that he reached salvation that night. Hughes was confused, he was raised to believe in Jesus Christ, that was all he ever knew and this new idea, that Jesus might not actually be real was terrifying. Hughes emotions were all over the place, he was both confused and sad, but mostly disappointed. Was he the problem? Was it his fault other children got saved from their sins

    Read More

  • Politics Of Memory Essay

    1225 Words  | 3 Pages

    Remembrance is an integral part of our everyday lives. Both pleasant and unpleasant memories shape who we are as human beings. The definition of memory is two fold 1. “the faculty by which the mind stores and remembers information” and 2. “Something remembered from the past; a recollection” (Google Definition). The life of memory has three stages in which it is created. An event occurs in ones life it becomes encoded and stored in the brain. Following the encoding, the brain then has full access to retrieve the memory in a response to any current activity or thought. Memories are unique to each person. There are three main types of memories that are studied. An individual memory is one that is formed by his or her personal experiences. An institutional

    Read More

  • Analysis Of Remember By Joy Harjo

    772 Words  | 2 Pages

    The poem, “Remember”, by Joy Harjo illuminates the significance of different aspects in one’s life towards creating one’s own identity. Harjo, explains how everything in the world is connected in some way. She conveys how every person is different and has their own identities. However, she also portrays the similarities among people and how common characteristics of the world impact humans and their identities. Harjo describes the interconnectedness of different aspects of nature and one’s life in order to convey their significance in creating one’s identity.

    Read More

  • Critical Analysis on Edwidge Danticat’s A Wall of Fire Rising

    1223 Words  | 3 Pages

    ...rson and he knows that she will take care of the little guy even if the Guy is not around. A distort desire to be free of the situation drive the whole family into tragedy and leave them grieves

    Read More

  • Comparing Memory In One Hundred Years Of Solitude And Song Of Solomon

    5678 Words  | 12 Pages

    Memory and the Quest for Family History in One Hundred Years of Solitude and Song of Solomon

    Read More

More about Character Analysis Of The Novel 'The Memory Keepers'

Open Document