The Past is the Essence of Who We Are: An ISU Summative Essay
In the duration of one's time on Earth, they experience an event that is so traumatic and detrimental to their entire being, that it results in the alternation of their personality and overall behavior. In order to heal and accept the events that took place, a person must reflect on their past in order to grow and strengthen for the future. In the novel The Winter Vault by Anne Michaels, it is seen that the main protagonists, Avery and Jean Escher used both their individual and shared memories of love and death, as well as the companionship of others to overcome the great difficulties they faced.
Recognized across the world, love is a representation of healing and has been used
…show more content…
In memorializing a loved and cherished one, reminiscing about the past memories that were shared is a great helping hand in coping with the loss and learning to become stronger for oneself. After facing many challenges in their former married life together, Avery and Jean made many attempts to deal with the death of their unborn child. Although, the death of their child was premature and they did not have a chance to experience and create wonderful memories of celebrating its life, they were able to grieve and cope while reminiscing for the newborn baby. Jean shows that she began to understand the death and that remembering it is helps her understand more complex situations and difficulties she faced; when she says “Death is the last reach of love, and all this time she had not recognized what had been her mother's task in her, nor in her child's; for love always has a task”(319) and “A child is like a fate; one's future and one's past”(165). In remembering the death of her child, Jean is able to reminisce on the beauty that a child would have brought to the relationship she had with Avery. She began to understand how their life as a couple could have alternated had the child been born alive. Through reliving the experience, Jean is able to come to terms about the traumatic experience and uses it to grow and strengthen herself as a human being. In the real world, death is an inevitability everyone faces at some point. This particular aspect of The Winter Vault can be similarly experienced in the death of a very close friend, a blood relative or someone that one feels great love and emotion towards. In comparison, both losses result in a grief that potentially destroys the mental and emotional stability a person could have. In order to help cope and deal with the situation at hand, when reminiscing about said person who has
Memories are symbols that are used to demonstrate the progression from the past into the development of one’s current personal identity. We often use our personal memories to investigate our thoughts. Native Guard by Natasha Trethewey and Never Let Me Go by Kazuo Ishiguro are 21st century works that reflect on the use of memoires to enhance personal thoughts to impact perspectives. Perspectives are created and altered by addressing and reflecting on thoughts and feelings towards previous events. In Native Guard, Trethewey uses her memories to develop a perspective on her past and history. In Never Let Me Go, Ishiguro uses Kathy’s memories to develop her actions and decisions. Tretheway and Ishiguro both demonstrate that a memory is a symbol
In her article, Quindlen delivers her position to the massive mixed audience of the New York Times, drawing in readers with an emotional and humanizing lure; opening up about her family life and the deaths she endured. Later presenting the loss of her brother's wife and motherless children, Quindlen use this moment to start the engine of her position. Quindlen uses her experiences coupled with other authority figures, such as, the poet Emily Dickenson, Sherwin Nuland, doctor and professor from Yale, author Hope Edelman, and the President. These testimonies all connect to the lasting effects of death on the living, grief. She comes full circle, returning to her recently deceased sister-in-law; begging t...
of memories” (Walker, 254). It is a representation of her mother’s love and warmth. The
Memory is both a blessing and a curse; it serves as a reminder of everything, and its meaning is based upon interpretation. In Julia Alvarez’s In the Time of the Butterflies Dedé lives through the memory of her family and her past. She tells the stories of her and her sisters lives leading up to their deaths, and reflects upon those memories throughout her daily life. Dedé lives on for her sisters, without her sisters, but all along carrying them with her throughout her life, never moving on. Dedé lives with the shame, sadness, and regret of all that has happened to her sisters, her marriage, and her family. Dedé’s memories serve as a blessing in her eyes, but are a burden
Through an intimate maternal bond, Michaels mother experiences the consequences of Michaels decisions, weakening her to a debilitating state of grief. “Once he belonged to me”; “He was ours,” the repetition of these inclusive statements indicates her fulfilment from protecting her son and inability to find value in life without him. Through the cyclical narrative structure, it is evident that the loss and grief felt by the mother is continual and indeterminable. Dawson reveals death can bring out weakness and anger in self and with others. The use of words with negative connotations towards the end of the story, “Lonely,” “cold,” “dead,” enforce the mother’s grief and regressing nature. Thus, people who find contentment through others, cannot find fulfilment without the presence of that individual.
Looking back on the death of Larissa’s son, Zebedee Breeze, Lorraine examines Larissa’s response to the passing of her child. Lorraine says, “I never saw her cry that day or any other. She never mentioned her sons.” (Senior 311). This statement from Lorraine shows how even though Larissa was devastated by the news of her son’s passing, she had to keep going. Women in Larissa’s position did not have the luxury of stopping everything to grieve. While someone in Lorraine’s position could take time to grieve and recover from the loss of a loved one, Larissa was expected to keep working despite the grief she felt. One of the saddest things about Zebedee’s passing, was that Larissa had to leave him and was not able to stay with her family because she had to take care of other families. Not only did Larissa have the strength to move on and keep working after her son’s passing, Larissa and other women like her also had no choice but to leave their families in order to find a way to support them. As a child, Lorraine did not understand the strength Larissa must have had to leave her family to take care of someone else’s
“Imagine. Even though it’s been here for years drying out and forgotten, it’s still here for us to enjoy. No matter how deeply we bury ourselves, our true essence stays with us, even when we think it’s gone” (Crewe, 36). This texts tells us that sometimes it is impossible to forget the past no matter how hard you try to run from it
The struggle to battle with the persistent grief of self-blame and lack of identity is a constant reminder to the barriers in relationships. Leroy grieves over the fact that he has lost his identity as a father and husband. Although he often thinks of Randy, the memories of him have faded. As a result, he latches on to Norma Jean but she doesn’t respond back. This causes him to feel like a failure of a husband. Norma Jean is grieving over the emptiness in her life. It was not the life she thought she would have. Her deceased son symbolizes her emptiness because of his death. She also feels emptiness towards her husband. For example, she feels very uncomfortable around him and always tries to find something for him to do. When Leroy arrives back home from his accident Mason implies, “he thinks she’s seems a little disappointed” (Mason 220), displaying Norma Jean frustrated with his lying around doing nothing but watching television and smoking pot. In addition, Norma Jean feels emptiness towards her mother, which is presented in the way her mother criticizes her. When tragedies occur in a family and self-confidence fades it can take over your life a...
This relates to me because when my grandmother died and a few days later one of my friend's siblings passed away after a car accident, she leaned on me so I became the strong one and put in my effort to make her happy even though I was still
Memories are one of the most important parts of life; there is no true happiness without the reminiscence of pain or love. This concept is portrayed in "The Giver" by Lois Lowry. The story tells of a 12 year old Jonas who lives in a “utopian” society, in which civilization coexist peacefully, and possess ideal lifestyles where all bad memories are destroyed to avoid the feeling of pain. Jonas becomes the receiver, someone who receives good and bad memories, and he is transmitted memories of pain and pleasure from The Giver and is taught to keep the secret to himself. The author shows one should cherish memories, whether it be good or bad, as they are all of what is left of the past, and we should learn from it as to better ourselves in the
Tom’s presence in Coral’s life has taught her to move past her son’s death and on a broader scale has conveyed to the audience that there is life after death and that you can move past the grief and rekindle past
She remembers killing beloved, and she remembers the way her body was abused in order to provide her dear baby with a gravestone. She remembers wanting to stay by beloved’s dead body, but that she couldn’t as she had to take care of
Katherine Philips is desperately trying to renew her faith in life, but she is struggling to do so because of the death of her son. She is attempting to justify the loss of her child as a form of consolation, while keeping somewhat emotionally detached to the later death of her stepson in “In Memory of F.P.” The differing phrases, words, and language contrast the two elegies and emphasize the loss and pain in “Epitaph” while diminishing the pain in “Memory of FP.”
Imagine growing up without a father. Imagine a little girl who can’t run to him for protection when things go wrong, no one to comfort her when a boy breaks her heart, or to be there for every monumental occasion in her life. Experiencing the death of a parent will leave a hole in the child’s heart that can never be filled. I lost my father at the young of five, and every moment since then has impacted me deeply. A child has to grasp the few and precious recollections that they have experienced with the parent, and never forget them, because that’s all they will ever have. Families will never be as whole, nor will they forget the anguish that has been inflicted upon them. Therefore, the sudden death of a parent has lasting effects on those
Merina is grieving and dying at the same time, yet she is not grieving about her own demise, she is grieving the loss of her “best friend” and daughter Kathy who had died three years earlier. In the film, Merina stated that she had “planned and counted on” Kathy to be there for her when her time came, but Kathy died first. Although Merina stated that she has had “three years to process this fact,” I could see the pain and grief in her eyes knowing that at one time not that long ago, this was very difficult for her to accept. When Merina speaks of Kathy the love she has for her could be seen from miles away. This love between a mother and daughter could never be denied and can be felt while watching this film.