Pean 1 Chelsea Pean Elliott Brown The Graphic Novel May 7th, 2024 With Family, Nothing is Impossible: Understanding And Forgiving Parents for Their Traumatic Past A traumatic event is a common thing in one’s life that can affect them psychologically and emotionally. However, some choose to bury their trauma as a defensive mechanism that protects them from emotional pain. This applies to the characters in The Best We Could Do by Thi Bui and 7 Generations: A Plains Cree Saga by David Robertson. First, Thi’s and Edwin’s parents experienced trauma during their childhood. Second, both texts include characters trying to understand trauma’s influence on someone. Third, this attempt to understand another’s trauma leads to a healing experience. These …show more content…
Pean 4 decides to live by understanding his people’s trauma, inspiring him to confront his fears. Therefore, these texts illustrate how understanding one’s trauma and acknowledging the individual’s perspective provides a deeper empathy within relationships, establishing a way of healing. Finally, Thi Bui and Edwin’s attempt to understand another’s trauma leads to a healing experience. Thi Bui feels closer to her parents once she knows and understands their history. For example, she feels like she is carrying the legacy of their past, confessing: “That being my father’s child, I, too, was a product of war. and being my mother’s child, could never measure up to her.” (Bui 325). However, being aware of her parents' sacrifices, trauma and struggles, her perspective transforms. She comes to terms with the weight of their history by stating: “I will always feel the weight of their past.” (Bui 325). This acknowledgment of Má and Bô’s past not only brings healing, but also allows her to see freedom in her son, granting her a new peace. As for Edwin, he feels like he can work towards healing himself once he sees what his dad and his people have gone …show more content…
[...] I want you to have this [...] so you can heal [...] because I forgive you.” (Robertson 127). Initially, this act of forgiveness is a result of the courage he gains from the stories of his people, teaching him a valuable lesson: perseverance. As a result, the main characters come to understand their family’s experiences, sacrifices and hardships, strengthening their relationships and helping in their healing. Pean 5 Overall, The Best We Could Do by Thi Bui and 7 Generations by David A. Robertson and Scott B. Henderson shows that understanding the trauma of a loved one creates the path to developing closer relationships and personal healing. Both sets of characters, the parents, and their children, deal with trauma but choose to bury it as a defensive mechanism. However, through their determination to understand these painful stories, both Thi Bui and Edwin managed to produce a profound bond with their parents. As a result, this attempt to understand another’s trauma facilitates personal growth, but also opens the door to forgiveness and healing. These texts powerfully demonstrate that comprehending another’s past is key to building strong and healing
“Picking up the pieces of their shattered lives was very, very difficult, but most survivors found a way to begin again.” Once again, Helen was faced with the struggle of living life day-to-day, trying not to continue feeling the pain of her past.
For someone who is very compassionate and always looking to help those less fortunate, Chris is, ironically, unable to forgive his parents’ mistakes. Krakauer reflects on Chris’s inability to forgive his father. “The boy could not pardon the mistakes his father had made as a young man…” (Krakauer 123). Forgiveness is important in Chris’ story because the resentment he has for his parents expands to other aspects of his life, and he begins to isolate himself. His isolation continues through college and ultimately leads...
However The great majority of parents are often cryptic in these necessary lessons while still others try to build a protective shield around their children. Do they really believe this is to the benefit of our youth? It is understandable to want to protect children from unnecessary evils, but sometimes in constructing walls around their worldly vision they are in all actuality cutting their children off from reality. It is so much healthier and helpful to confront these issues head-on, rather than trying to skirt around them. & Juliet" by the students, such avoidance of the matter at hand will often prove more harmful in the development of young minds. Through the various misconceptions of the children in her short story, "The Brother in Vietnam," Maxine Hong Kingston allows her readers to see just how necessary truth is to the vulnerable minds of our youth.
Thien suggests the idea of experience versus innocence. A child’s unconditional love and loss of innocence is compared to her father’s learned and experienced love. The narrator loses her innocence as a child when she experiences the traumatic event of her father beating her brother. She asks, “How to reconcile all that I know of him and still love him?” (346).
All through the times of the intense expectation, overwhelming sadness, and inspiring hope in this novel comes a feeling of relief in knowing that this family will make it through the wearisome times with triumph in their faces. The relationships that the mother shares with her children and parents are what save her from despair and ruin, and these relationships are the key to any and all families emerging from the depths of darkness into the fresh air of hope and happiness.
Toni Morrison’s “Recitatif” and A.S. Byatt’s “The Thing in the Forest” are both focused on the intersections of childhood trauma, memory, and guilt, as well as how someone’s childhood can affect them through life. Each has its own idea of what effect the guilt might have on a person and how it can affect different people in different ways. “Recitatif” and “The Thing in the Forest” both revolve around the guilt and confusion that adults face when reflecting upon their childhood and wondering if their recollections are entirely accurate; however, one focuses on the difference it makes in otherwise parallel lives and the other focuses on the parallel it makes in otherwise different lives.
Though, acceptance of trauma can allow hindered development, eventually allowing full self-acceptance. Bernice, a once strong woman has been verbally, emotionally and physically abused since her childhood. Resulting in a loss of her sense of being. Within the beginning of the novel, when she is reflecting on her past memories, it becomes clear to the reader that in order for her to be able to accept herself, she needs to surface her past traumas. Bernice explains that, “In the tendrils, Bernice realizes there is remorse in her body and she is trying to kick it out. Her shell rejects remorse. Shame. Feeling bad over feeling good” (49). This mindset is negative and expresses her inability to share her emotions due to previous emotional abuse from her family and the many men that have taken advantage of her. This idea of disallowing happiness hinders her ability to accept herself and her past actions. However, through more time of self-reflection (over 200 hundred pages of her lying in bed with the author switching perspectives, confusing the hell out of me lol) Bernice realizes that she must learn to cope with these traumas and attempt to have a positive outlook on life. As Bernice is accepting the damaged part of herself, she comes to the realization that, “She can feel her body now, its loose and stiff at the same time. Her head, though will be the hard part. Part of her lost for so long that it is hard to enunciate what, exactly, she has found” (228). In comparison to when Bernice was unable to acknowledge her feelings and thoughts, it is now clear that she is slowly learning to manage her issues. By Bernice discovering that she is beginning to acknowledge her thoughts, this is the first step to being able to accept one’s self. In Total, It is shown that Bernice is deeply affected by the trauma within her life, however she is able to
pity in the reader by reflecting on the traumatic childhood of her father, and establishes a cause
These revelations usually involve the acquisition of knowledge--the sort of knowledge we frequently already possess, but pretend that we don't: parents have lives entirely secret from their children; there is a point beyond which damaged love cannot be repaired; people use other people even when (and as) they love them.The families in these stories create stories of their own, stories about who and what they are as entities--stories which are often at odds with reality, but which help them to deal with the disappointments and tragedies of that reality.Clearly, the title's allusion to Hansel and Gretel invites reading these as stories of innocence lost; and most of the reviews of this oft-reviewed and much-praised collection (it was short listed for the 1995 Pen-Faulkner award) make much of this connection.But these are also stories of the terrifying darkness of adult responsibilities recognized and faced, though not always triumphantly.
When faced with a life altering situation although Molly’s characteristics and personality aid her in courageously defying them, the effects of facing this traumatic event will lead to long term psychological repercussions. When severe harm is inflicted on a person’s psyche, it is viewed as an emotional trauma (Levers, 2012). The emotional harm inflicted on Molly’s psyche originates from different dimensions; like her upbringing, her trauma is multidimensional too. As a child of the Indigenous community, whose ancestors and elders were killed violently in inter-group conflicts, and whose children were forcefully removed from families, Molly is would experience intergenerational trauma (Atkinson, 2002). Intergenerational trauma is trauma passed down from one generation to another; as a close knitted community group, the grief experienced by family members of losing their loved ones, would have been transferred across generations (Atkinson,
Over many centuries, thousands of authors have written stories about and containing trauma. When it comes to trauma, authors often struggle in determining how to portray it to their reader. This is a common struggle for authors who write about tragic events because they are usually unsure of how their reader will react. Some events such as the fall of the Twin Towers, multiple wars, and the Holocaust are very hard to retell so it is very difficult to do so. But after traumatic events, such as physical or mental abuse or issues, that threaten to rob people of their happiness and spirit, people typically don’t tell others.
“The story employs a dramatic point of view that emphasizes the fragility of human relationships. It shows understanding and agreemen...
Both texts offer the implication that, rather than attempting to face strife alone, one can turn to an adult who they can trust. Ultimately, by acknowledging the beneficial impact turning to a parent had on the two young boys in these stories, today’s youth can be better connected with their elders through mentorship, conversation, and
On a more personal level, healing occurs in the protagonist, Lally. For the most part of the novel, the reader will have a tough time identifying with Lally, as the root of her so-called trauma is brought onto herself. Lally as a character is extremely self-absorbed and quite pathetic as she believes she has had such a ‘traumatic’ childhood,
Adam, a corporal officer, starts as man who works everyday to catch the ‘villains’ of society, but is not spending enough time with his family, especially his son. He favors his nine year old daughter over his fifteen year old son. Adam views his daughter as a sweet child, and his son as a stubborn teenager who is going through a rebellious stage. However, when his daughter is killed in an accident, his perspective of family changes. In his grief, he states that he wishes he had been a better father. His wife reminds him that he still is a father and he realizes that he still has a chance with his son, Dylan. After his Daughter’s death, he creates a resolution from scriptures that states how he will be a better father. Because of the resolution he creates, he opens up to and spends more time with his son. By th...