The month of October in 1940, witnessed multiple mysterious occurrences in the small rural area. All involving a box, at least that is what the first-hand eyewitnesses all mentioned. Till now no one knows the exact happening, it remained a mystery that baffled everyone till this very day. Some remember a strange man coming to the town. They said he had a somehow intimating presence. He didn’t stay long they say, he just vanished into thin air, leaving no traces behind. The man who the town believed was holding the box. The corner of the street, in the cold streets of the town, lived two sisters in a decaying small shack. They didn’t choose this life; they just knew that the orphanage will not keep them together. The sister decided to runaway, to keep the memory of their once happy family. The family that was shattered when the two sisters heard about the death of their parents, four shots that was all it took for them to die. The sisters often wondered how many shots it will take to reunite them with their parents. However one of the sister, the little one, didn’t have to wonder much longer, she wasn’t shot, but she suffered from influenza. "I will keep you alive Lydia, I can't lose you, we die together, and we live together, I won't let death come to you" Anna, who is now a young lady, said to her little dying sister Lydia. Lydia found comfort about the thought of death, however the thought of Anna being alone crushed her, and she needed to make sure she will be alright. The morning came, and Anna decided to knock the doors of the doctors, hoping one day someone will pity her and check up on her sister. Anna knew that her sister could recover, that’s what the words on the street said, and they said the best doctor that could c... ... middle of paper ... ...away to her shack, holding the briefcase so tightly to her chest, but she wasn’t prepared to see what was coming. Her sister was on the floor lifelessly facing the ceiling. In tears now, Anna approached the body quickly, dropping the briefcase in the process. She saw a note attached to Lydia's hand, she hurried in opening it "You already knew that there was no hope in saving Lydia, she was going to die whether she was rich or poor. Why risk another soul if the fifty thousand pounds, as you claim, would have saved her. But as promised the money you already received, do whatever you please" And with that Anna's life was never the same. Hating herself with every step she took. Now she only longed for a familiar face in this life. Not two days after that, another death occurred. A little girl died and now a mother is joining her, where did this selfish town go wrong?
Now that the summary is out there for all who did not get to read the story let’s make some connections to everyday life. In the story is it said by the author that, “All the while I hated myself for having wept before the needle went in, convinced that the nurse and my mother we...
...ed to confront the deep pain that she has carried in her heart; she must give an account of her life as she comes closer to the shadow of death.
Death is inevitable to all forms of life. In giving birth to a typical family, Flannery O’Connor immediately sets the tone for their deaths, in the story, A Good Man is Hard To Find. O'Connor’s play on words, symbolism and foreshadowing slowly paves the way for the family’s death.
Even when at sixty Granny believed she was dying, Granny overcame the sickness because she endured. Endurance is a means of persevering through adversity. Granny recalls riding out to women having babies and sitting with sick animals and people and hardly ever losing one. Granny was not self-absorbed but became involved in helping others through their problems. Mentoring a person suffering an adversity is a chance to help them but also a chance to make use of a personal adversity and persevere. Joseph Wiesenfarth asserts Granny’s children are her consolation for the pain suffered in her life (“Internal Opposition” 106). The attentiveness of Cornelia and the rushing of Lydia and Jimmy to be at their dying mother’s bedside points not to children who consoled their mother but of a mother who consoled her children overcoming adversity for the sake of their future. Focusing on the future is a means of perseverance through
“Sarah McMahon?” A woman opened the office door and called her. Sarah stood up and followed the woman. Sarah’s mom followed right behind her. “We’re just going to take your weight and the usual check ups.” The nurse said as she led them into a small room with a cushioned table with white paper strewn over it. They checked her weight, height, temperature, blood pressure and throat. “Very good.” The nurse said. She put Sarah’s record into a slot on the door. “The doctor will be with you in a minute.” She said as she closed the door.
of the story he comes to a conclusion that it is not a ghost that
Anna displays courage in the story multiple times despite how unlucky she’s been in her life. At an early age she had faced the death of her first husband, Harold Avalon, and her first child. Harold dies because of an
...her ghost rose up and began ripping her apart finger by finger toe by toe and limb by limb till all that was left was a key and a drop of blood.
From her death-bed, Elizabeth Johnson heard the corn stalks rustling, calling her name. Her withered, bare feet hit the hardwood floor of her bedroom. She glanced at her hospice nurse, Ethel, snoring in the big overstuffed chair by her bed. She picked up the family portrait of her husband and her three kids, kissed it and laid it on the bed. She shuffled in the dark, knowing every corner of the old farmhouse her daddy had built. Her tired legs ached with each step, but the stalks kept whispering her name as they blew in the October wind, and so she plowed on.
Anna has had control over her own life taken away from her, due to the societal limitations on her choices as a woman. She becomes resentful of the society she lives in, and turns that frustration on the unsympathetic Vronsky, who retains his own freedom as well as control over her own happiness. She is too proud and passionate to live in subordination, as Dolly Oblonsky does. Anna cannot conceive of going on indefinitely as she has been, and at the same time can take no pleasure from contemplation of her past, or her future, which holds no prospect of change. Feeling trapped and untrue to her own unwanted desires, she begins to see the entire world as a wretched place populated by miserable, entrapped individuals just like herself. Through death alone, she feels she can secure a place in Vronsky's heart. Death is also the only decision that she is free to carry out on her own.
woman’s life, from her being a teen to her death in her house. The town’s people did not
Staying calm and level headed really saved her life without having anyone else around. She did not let situation overwhelm her as she kept moving to higher ground from the table, to the kitchen counter and finally to the top shelf of her closet. Lydia’s strong will to survive was shown even more, as she watched the water rise up to seven feet inside her house for 5 days without food or potable water, just a photo album to keep her hopes alive. Getting a feel for what people like Lydia went through is not easy just by watching television. The detail of the story really makes you feel sorry for the people affected by these storms even ten years later knowing they will always carry the scars of this tragedy
Nancy was only four years old when her grandmother died. Her grandmother had a big lump on the lower right hand side of her back. The doctors removed it, but it was too late. The tumor had already spread throughout her body. Instead of having a lump on her back, she had a long stitched up incision there. She couldn’t move around; Nancy’s parents had to help her go to the bathroom and do all the simple things that she use to do all by herself. Nancy would ask her grandmother to get up to take her younger sister, Linh, and herself outside so they could play. She never got up. A couple of months later, an ambulance came by their house and took their grandmother away. That was the last time Nancy ever saw her alive. She was in the hospital for about a week and a half. Nancy’s parents never took them to see her. One day, Nancy saw her parents crying and she have never seen them cry before. They dropped Linh and her off at one of their friend’s house. Nancy got mad because she thought they were going shopping and didn’t take her with them.
Additionally, the alienation that she felt between romance and objectification was not the only binary that Anna struggled with. She also struggled with feeling that she did not belong in England. She frequently mentioned that she was always cold and could never become warm. She enjoyed the warmth, sunshine, and outdoors in Jamaica and living in a cold and dreary environment was a dramatic change for her. This binary was one that caused her to feel depressed and sad, something that she repeated very often. She struggled with depression in almost all areas of her life and would lay in bed for hours. The depression that Anna struggled with hindered her development and extenuated her lack of agency. It also exemplified the lack of control that
“It will be okay,” she had said. My sister never lies, but that day she did, taking a rather large part of me with her, leaving behind an empty shell that searches for a glimpse of her in the busy marketplace. I grasp the shoebox tightly, suddenly coming to a realization. It was never her harbouring hope of a family from the photographs, rather me hoping it would be enough to anchor her to me. I close my tired eyes, vision growing fainter, body becoming paralyzed, and the busy voices of the flea market muting to a dull throb. And slowly I fall, fall into the dark abyss of my mind, memories blurring out the present for the past, until all that remains (of us) is a shoebox filled with photographs.