She opened the door and a scream was unleashed, she saw her father hanging. Death had come knocking at their door, there was her father, hanging dead, emotionless, his beady lifeless eyes staring at his daughter. Lily turned around and heard her mother’s frantic footsteps making their way up the wooden staircase. Lily stood by the door of her father’s study with glimmering tears running down her cheeks.
“What’s the matter darling? “ asked her mother. Lily could say nothing, she felt paralysed there was nothing she could do. “WHAT’S THE MATTER?” asked her mother again, growing more and more anxious by the second. She slowly made her way to her daughter and peered into her husband’s study. There he was hanging, showing no signs of remorse towards his mourning wife and daughter. The mother quickly shielded her daughter’s eyes hoping it would make the horrible scene disappear and resurrect her dead husband from the underworld. There by the door of the study stood Lily and her mother weeping as if tomorrow would never come knocking on their doorstep ever again.
A few hours later their huge, beachside manor was crawling with men in blue uniforms and a few others in white lab coats. Lily was sitting on the patio listening to the howl of the wind and the roar of the angry waves, she turned her head towards the front door of their patio and saw the men in white carrying a big black body bag across a stretcher, her father was in that bag. She sat on the wooden chair sipping on the hot chocolate drink her mother had prepared. Lily stood up and made her way down the cold sand, she liked the way the sand crawled in between her toes. She stood by the beach wrapped up in a warm blanket, she began reminiscing all the wonderful times she h...
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“ hi Andy, “ said Lily. She was trying to sound happy, but he knew very well it was just an act.
“ hey Lily, I just wanted to check in on you”
“ oh, I’m fine”
“ well, honestly, I wanted to talk to you.” Said Andy and he slowly approached Lily.
“ Well, what is it??”
“ Lily, I know all about your drinking. I was passing by your house and I saw you through the window. I know all about the Yale letter too.”
Lily was shocked “ have you been stalking me?”
“ Yes, I admit it. Listen please I like you and I love the ocean and so do you. I found this letter with my father. It’s from your dad and it’s for you. Our parents used to be friends.”
Lily took the letter from Andy and read it. It was a letter which included her father’s wishes for her to continue her love of marines and the sea. She finished the letter and ran to Andy’s arms and secretly smiled inside.
At the start of the novel, a general understanding of Lily’s life is explained, giving knowledge about T.Ray, Rosaleen, and her mother, Deborah. Lily describes the little she is able to remember about her mother's death as she was only four years old at the time. A nasty fight had broken out between T.Ray and Deborah, leaving a frightened Lily to be tossed around between the two. A gun had appeared on scene and in an attempt to save her mother, Lily got involved. In a remembrance of this chilling day, Lily reflects, “What is left lies in clear yet disjointed pieces in my head. The gun shining like a toy in her hand, how she snatched it away and waved it around. The gun on the floor. Bending to pick it up. The noise that exploded around us. This is what I know about myself. She was all I wanted. And I took her away” (Kidd 7-8). Through reflection, a very heartbroken Lily is able to convey what happened on that dreadful day when her mother died in her own thoughts and beliefs. As a result of this event, Lily begins to carry an immense amount of grief and guilt around as well as losing herself into these bad memories and feelings. Her self love is depleted and her mother is gone, leaving her with T.Ray and her new mother figure,
She believes that at the age of three years old, she dropped the pistol that was on the floor in the bedroom, capable of shooting her mother. That was the whole point of traveling to Timburon as she did, to find the truth, but she didn’t. She did however, meet three beautiful ladies who had once known her mother from the way she styled her hair, to the color of socks she puts on her feet. Lily’s mother had come back to the Pink house to live with August, June, and May a few months before she was killed. She left her daughter and husband. The time she came back to get her stuff, and her daughter, was the time she was deployed into heaven, gone forever. Lily was a rock when she heard the news that her mother had left her with a man who abused her☺. From the time she left the peach farm at home, to the time T-Ray came knocking on the door of the pink house, Lily had gone back and forth with how much she loved her mother and how much her mother loved her. One day she would find out that her mother left her with T-Ray, and the next day she would find a picture of the two when she was an infant, noses touching. Did her mother love her? Yes! Did she love her mother? Yes! When her mother left her, she was in a state of depression. She needed to get away from the world. Deborah did, however, come back for her daughter. Sadly, Lily didn’t completely understand her rasoning. It took a long time to accept the fact that her mother left her and even longer to forgive her and realize that she really did love her
“She cried out, she cried for her mother, she felt her breath start jerking back and forth in her lungs as if it were something Arnold Friend was stabbing her with again and again with no tenderness. A noisy sorrowful wailing rose all about her and she was locked inside it the way she was locked inside this house” (Oates
Her family life is depicted with contradictions of order and chaos, love and animosity, conventionality and avant-garde. Although the underlying story of her father’s dark secret was troubling, it lends itself to a better understanding of the family dynamics and what was normal for her family. The author doesn’t seem to suggest that her father’s behavior was acceptable or even tolerable. However, the ending of this excerpt leaves the reader with an undeniable sense that the author felt a connection to her father even if it wasn’t one that was desirable. This is best understood with her reaction to his suicide when she states, “But his absence resonated retroactively, echoing back through all the time I knew him. Maybe it was the converse of the way amputees feel pain in a missing limb.” (pg. 399)
I walked into the room on New Year’s Day and felt a sudden twinge of fear. My eyes already hurt from the tears I had shed and those tears would not stop even then the last viewing before we had to leave. She lay quietly on the bed with her face as void of emotion as a sheet of paper without the writing. Slowly, I approached the cold lifeless form that was once my mother and gave her a goodbye kiss.
Terrible heartbreak plagues the reader: “And the mother’s shrieks of wild despair / Rise ...
Tears flooded my face as I let her hand go. I love my mother dearly, but without father I had to be the head of the house. The one to take charge in times like these. She was in not in a good place of mind to be rational. Why had father forsaken us like this, why couldn't we just go home and be with him. The thoughts swirled around my head but the next thing I knew was mother laying on the ground in pain. Her face crinkled and puffy as she clenched her stomach in the delicate hands.
In Chapter 13, Lily learns that her mother indeed ran away from the both of them to August’s home and she’s given proof of this because she’s given some things that were in her possession. Lily becomes angry because most of her life she has had to live with the guilt of killing her own mother. She becomes hopeless, and it shows when she says “I drew into myself and stayed there for a while… I spent most of my time down by the river, alone. I just wanted to keep to myself” ( Kidd 277 ). Lily contemplates whether she should forgive her mother for leaving, whether her mother even loved her in the first place. She calls herself “the girl abandoned by her mother… the girl who kneeled on grits” ( Kidd 278 ). These events cause her to finally let go of her mother and live her life without guilt taking
“I love you, too, you know,” Neil breathed quietly. Andrew felt his cheeks flame against his will; he was glad it was dark and Neil couldn’t see his blush.
The Narrator’s family treats her like a monster by resenting and neglecting her, faking her death, and locking her in her room all day. The Narrator’s family resents her, proof of this is found when the Narrator states “[My mother] came and went as quickly as she could.
“Fine but you owe me big time why don’t we go to the cove and see if Lily might be able to help us,”exclaimed Jess annoyed.The two girls headed to the cove where they would hope to get some of Lily’s help.
...er close scrutiny so that they appear to be magnified and distorted even before the death of the father which starts the action and reactions of the plot. McEwan then puts the children in an almost impossible position as they attempt to carry on as usual after the death of both parents. McEwan sets the action in an anonymous derelict urban environment which he describes in elliptical terms so that the minimum effective clues are given to the reader to visualise the flat and cheerless area in which the family survives. This landscape reflects the tenebrous confines of Jack's individual mental world and the family's collective and tormented minds. Through this complex filter the reader feels the sadness of the children's fate and the tragedy of the soulless society in which such events can happen.
Two weeks after her father’s funeral, our protagonist Annie sees his ghost in her bathroom. Knowing he is dead, they small talk about her boyfriend, their farm, their deceased family etc. until he suddenly vanishes. Her father makes occasional appearances after that. They keep talking about everyday life until one night at the Opera House, where she not only sees her father, but her brother and mother as well. Knowing where to find them, she takes her goodbye with her dead family.
She slammed the door behind her. Her face was hot as she grabbed her new perfume and flung it forcefully against the wall. That was the perfume that he had bought for her. She didn't want it anymore. His voice coaxed from the other side of the door. She shouted at him to get away. Throwing herself on the bed and covering her face with one of his shirts, she cried. His voice coaxed constantly, saying Carol, let me in. Let me explain.' She shouted out no!' Then cried some more. Time passed with each sob she made. When she caught herself, there was no sound on the other side of the door. A long silence stood between her and the door. Maybe she had been too hard on him, she thought. Maybe he really had a good explanation. She hesitated before she walked toward the door and twisted the handle. Her heart was crying out to her at this moment. He wasn't there. She called out his name. "Thomas!" Her cries were interrupted by the revving of an engine in the garage. She made it to the window in time to see his Volvo back out the yard. "Thomas! Thomas....wait!" Her cries vanished into thin air as the Volvo disappeared around the bend. Carol grew really angry all of a sudden. How could he leave? He'll sleep on the couch when he gets back. Those were her thoughts.
“After seeing what my dad did to you I realised how callous I was, I want to help you and prove to everyone that being different doesn’t make you inferior.”