Grief, whether felt by a community or personal, is an important theme used by many authors. The Sweet Hereafter by Russell Banks and We Need to Talk About Kevin by Lionel Shriver explore the devastating impacts of a traumatic event in a community and in individual lives through the use of multiple perspectives. While Banks' novel examines the collective grief and search for meaning following a school bus accident, Shriver's narrative delves into the complex dynamics of familial guilt and societal blame after a school shooting. Both books explore themes of guilt, responsibility, and the impact of death on the community. Guilt is a pervasive theme in both The Sweet Hereafter and We Need to Talk About Kevin, serving as a way to shape the character’s …show more content…
Stephen’s quest for justice and reparations reveals the complexities of attributing responsibility in the face of a tragic event, implying that the urge for healing is sometimes overtaken by the search for blame. Similarly in We Need to Talk About Kevin, the expectations of society and the dynamics of families are used to illustrate the idea of responsibility. Eva and her husband Franklin represent contrasting approaches to parenting and accountability. While Franklin often dismisses Kevin's troubling behavior as typical young rebellion, Eva senses something deeply wrong but struggles to assert her concerns. Eva’s reflection, "He dismissed my fears as hysteria" (Shriver, 73). This quote underscores the challenges she faces in taking responsibility for Kevin's upbringing, in between denial and conflict. The novel digs deep into the extent to which parents are responsible for their children's actions and the role that denial and willful ignorance play in the escalation of destructive behavior, challenging readers to consider the limits of parental influence and the broader societal responsibility in preventing such
In “Whoever We Are, Loss Finds us and Defines Us”, by Anna Quindlen, she brings forth the discussion grief's grip on the lives of the living. Wounds of death can heal with the passing of time, but in this instance, the hurt lives on. Published in New York, New York on June 5, 1994, this is one of many Quindlen published in the New York Times, centered on death's aftermath. This article, written in response to the death of Quindlen’s sister-in-law, and is focused on an audience who has, currently is, or will experience death. Quindlen-a columnist for the New York Times and Newsweek, Pulitzer Prize winner and author-has written six bestselling novels (Every Last One, Rise and Shine, Object Lessons, One True Thing, and Black and Blue) and has been published in the New York Times and Newsweek.
Guilt is a powerful force in humans. It can be the factor that alters someone's life. On the other hand, forgiveness can be just as powerful. In The Poisonwood Bible by Barbara Kingsolver, her characters-the Price family-travel to Africa on a religious mission. Throughout the novel, the concept of guilt and forgiveness is reflected on multiple occasions. Each character has a different experience with guilt and how it affects them in the end. By structuring The Poisonwood Bible to include five different narrators, Kingsolver highlights the unique guilt and forgiveness to each individual experiences as well expresses the similarities that all humans face with these complex emotions.
Guilt is a powerful emotion that can affect the path of a person’s life. Dunstan’s character in Robertson Davies’s “Fifth Business” experienced guilt at an early age and stayed with Dunstan throughout his life, and continually affected his relationships with Mrs.Dempster, Boy and Paul into an unhealthy one. Dunstan took the blame for the snow ball entirely without acknowledging boy was at fault. “I was contrite and guilty, for I knew that the snowball had been meant for me” (Davies, 11). From that point in his life, his guilt had the dynamo effect. He took blame for every tragedy that happened to the Dempster family since. Dunstan’s battled guilt ultimately controlled his action and relationships.
The presence of sorrow is ________ in Tim Winton’s novel, Cloudstreet. The impact of this anguish proves to be neither manageable or momentary, with various factors ensuring that the characters take a while to overcome or accept their grief. These factors include the complex nature of disputes and the lack of right and wrong. The unwillingness to tolerate or empathise with others, maximising the hatred that inspires misery. The consequence of grief can dislodge someone’s identity and it takes time for them to readjust and find their sense of meaning
Loss and How We Cope We all deal with death in our lives, and that is why Michael Lassell’s “How to Watch Your Brother Die” resonates with so many readers. It confronts the struggles of dealing with death. Lassell writes the piece like a field guide, an instruction set for dealing with death, but the piece is much more complex than its surface appearance. It touches on ideas of acceptance, regret, and misunderstanding, to name a few. While many of us can identify with this story, I feel like the story I brought into the text has had a much deeper and profound impact.
The critics who perceived this book's central theme to be teen-age angst miss the deep underlying theme of grief and bereavement. Ambrosio asks the question, "Is silence for a writer tantamount to suicide? Why does the wr...
Despite the basic requirements for human’s survival, personal relationships should be added because not many people are able to function well without intimate relationships with other people or valuable things. Due to this fact, grief occurs when there is a loss either through death, divorce, or theft or when something valuable to an individual can no longer be reached. Grief is that period of time when loss is felt acutely, and the feelings of loss are still very raw to the person. This paper is based on the book Lament for a Son, which was written by Nicholas Wolterstorff, a collection of narratives by this author who is going through grief due to the premature death of his 25-year-old son, Eric, who died in an accident while climbing a mountain.
“The Sweet Hereafter” portrays the grief stricken citizens of a remote Canadian town traumatized by a terrible accident, and the impact of an ambulance-chasing lawyer who is attempting to deal with the grief in his own life. The film also depicts the grieving subjects susceptibility to convert grief and guilt into both blame and monetary gain and the transformation this small community faces after such a devastating event.
Through the story the protagonist a young teenage boy who loses his mother after her suicide herself is then followed by the death of his father in a car crash. At such a young age this boy describes the pain he goes through by the way he responds with regard to how others treat him. He demonstrates how grief can alter a person
In Russell Banks' novel, The Sweet Hereafter, a small town suffers a great tragedy when fourteen school kids drown after a bus accident on the way to school. The bus driver, Dolores Driscoll, considers the kids to be her own. Yet, when discussing the accident, she acts nonchalant. It seems as if she is relaying a story without displaying remorse for the accident. Dolores' priority is to describe the town, "my first stop that morning was at the top of Bartlett Hill Road, were it branches into Avalanche Road and McNeil,"(Banks 7) and the people in it, "Doreen was a Pomeroy from Lake Placid..."(11). She also strives to avoid the blame, "A dog-it was a dog I saw for certain. Or thought I saw"(1). But she even doubts her visions, denouncing the excuses that she keeps arguing. " Maybe because I felt so cut off from my own children; maybe out of some pure perversity. Who knows now? Fixing motives is life fixing blame-the further away from the act you get, the harder it is to single out one thing as having caused it"(10) She never iterates her sadness. The onl...
A Death in the Family by James Agee demonstrates that religious beliefs are a crucial ingredient in the way people cope with traumatizing situations in life. The sudden death of Jay Follet, a father and husband, is what the characters in this novel have been dealing with. Each character has a different point of view of religion that has played a role on how they live after the death. For example, Mary Follet, wife of Jay, is Catholic and has a deep belief in God, which affects the way she sees the death by showing her that God made it happen. Mary and Jay have two children, Rufus and Catherine, whom are too young to have decided what they believe in. Rufus does not look at the death in a religious way. The people around him, however, are demonstrating
For instance, the physical and emotional scars from events like the hot dog fire, a consequence of her parents' neglect, illustrate the trauma that Jeannette was forced to endure. Even so, Jeannette’s traits of resilience and determination despite the trauma that was inflicted on her as a child prove that child negligence may lead to trauma that could never be resolved, but that doesn’t necessarily determine the potential one possesses to forge a successful future. On the other hand, Rex’s addiction to harmful coping mechanisms giving him the inability to take proper care of his children, and Maureen’s dependency on others due to neglect impairing Maureen’s ability to become independent proves that child negligence may lead to trauma that can and will determine the potential one possesses to forge a successful future. The contrasting experiences represented in The Glass Castle symbolize that even in today’s society, there are still very complex outcomes of child negligence due to the differences in how one responds to
Ian McEwan illustrates a profound theme that builds details throughout the novel Atonement, the use of guilt and the quest for atonement are used with in the novel to convey the central dynamic aspect in the novel. McEwan constructs the emotion of guilt that is explored through the main character, Briony Tallis. The transition of child and entering the adult world, focus on the behavior and motivation of the young narrator Briony. Briony writes passages that entail her attempt to wash away her guilt as well find forgiveness for her sins. In which Briony ruined the lives and the happiness of her sister, Cecilia, and her lover Robbie. The reality of the events, attempts to achieve forgiveness for her actions. She is unable to understand the consequences of the actions as a child but grows to develop the understanding of the consequence with age. McEwan exemplifies an emotional novel that alters reality as he amplifies the creative acts of literature. In this essay I will be arguing that, the power of guilt prevents people from moving on from obstacles that hold them in the past.
The film We Need to Talk about Kevin opens with vibrant images of what looks to be bright red jelly being thrown around in a festival on the street. There is a woman smiling, laughing, happy to be there and be free. This woman is Eva Khatchadourian, the mother of the film’s namesake, Kevin, and depicts a vastly different contrast to the rest of the film, as we follow the story of Kevin and his likely mental illness through the eyes of Eva. There may be brief light moments of happiness in the rest of the film, but never again like the happiness Eva experienced before Kevin’s birth, as raising him proves to be a challenge from day one.
Often when a person suffers through a tragic loss of a loved one in his or her life they never fully recover to move on. Death is one of hardest experiences a person in life ever goes through. Only the strong minded people are the ones that are able to move on from it whereas the weak ones never recover from the loss of a loved one. In the novel The Sweet Hereafter by Russell Banks, character Billy Ansel – having lost his family serves as the best example of brokenness after experiencing death. Whether it is turning to substance abuse, using his memory to escape reality or using Risa Walker as a sexual escape, Billy Ansel never fully recovers from the death of his twins and his wife. This close analysis of Billy’s struggle with death becomes an important lesson for all readers. When dealing with tragedies humans believe they have the moral strength to handle them and move on by themselves but, what they do not realize is that they need someone by their side to help them overcome death. Using unhealthy coping mechanism only leads to life full of grief and depression.