The One Memory of Flora Banks is a fiction book written by Emily Barr about this 17-year-old woman who has a terrible memory. Flora had a brain tumor removed when she was about 10-years-old, but when this tumor was removed, part of her brain that holds the long and short term memory was removed in the process, causing her anterograde amnesia. Flora only remembers concepts for about an hour or so and then forgets them. To remind herself what happens during the day, she has to write herself notes on her wrist. One night, she goes to a going-away party and kisses this boy named Drake, who happens to be her best friend’s boyfriend, and claims that he made her remember. In the process of the next day, Flora losses her best friend, Paige, and her …show more content…
parents had to leave for Paris to care for Flora’s brother. Flora was left all alone in her house to figure out for herself who her brother is and what Drake means to her even though he moved to the Arctic. “Mom and Dad are with Jacob because he is sick, I write. I don’t know how sick he is, but it is serious” (Barr 47), is one of the things Flora would write on a note to stick around her house to help her remember. But with Drake’s help, she did not need to remember that night. The words would fill her head and she would start having feelings for Drake. Everything around her was telling her that this was wrong, she could not be with him, but one day she receives an email from Drake. “Flora- I can’t stop thinking about you” (53) and “I am thinking about you constantly and I cannot even see you” (57) are a few of the things Drake would email Flora. A few days before her parents were supposed to return home, Flora decided that she needs to go see Drake. “I love Drake, and I tell him that I love him, and he says that he loves me too” (59-60). Because of this love that Flora has for Drake, she decides that she’s going to travel to Svalbard, Norway to live with him. In the meantime of all her travel planning, Jacob has gotten worse. His condition made Flora’s parents stay longer than expected. This was Flora’s chance.
She left by airplane with her own passport and a ticket she bought off of her parents credit card. While in Svalbard, Flora makes a large amount of friends in the four days time she was supposed to find Drake. Her friend, Agi, helped her with her struggles of memory and stayed by her side until she found Drake. Agi thought she was helping Flora when she called her parents, but to Flora, she was hurting her. Her parents were on her way, but she still had to find Drake. The only thing that mattered in her life was Drake. When running from Agi one night, she sees Drake. “Drake is ahead of me, and I have remembered things. Drake makes me remember” (208). Unfortunately, it was dark and Flora did not know where he went and had to wait to see him again. She rushes out of Agi’s house the next morning and finds herself getting help from Henny, a woman who works at a boots shop. Flora was supposed to use Henny’s money to go get some breakfast, but instead, she heads to find …show more content…
Drake. Flora hops onto a boat that was tied to the dock, steals it, and rows her way to Drake’s house. But it was not Drake’s house, it was his girlfriend, Nadia. Nadia and Drake listen to Flora’s story of why she came to Svalbard, although, Drake shuts her story down. “ ‘Flora,’ he says. ‘I don’t know what you think happened between us, but it really didn’t. You were Paige’s friend. But that’s all. I never kissed you on any beach, Flora. I never asked you to come here’” (229). Drake made Flora seem like she was crazy and changed the story that was in her head. In an attempt to explain that she was right, Flora shows the emails between her and Drake, only to find out that it was just Flora. She had created an email account in Drake’s name and was emailing herself all of those nice things “Drake” was saying to her. Flora bursted out of the house in a panic attack and wandered around the Arctic. “Soon I will be out of sight. I will find a place to hide, and I will not move until I remember what is that I have done” (236). She was ashamed of what she had done, but she was still very confused about what she had done. All she knew was that I was bad. Flora gets found by this nice man named Toby whom had served her coffee in the breakfast area of her hotel and Toby takes her back to Drake’s to stay until he father arrives. Flora’s father arrives eventually, but the shock of Drake still haunted Flora. She was sent home where her mother increased her drug dosage and made her forget about everything that happened in the Arctic. Her mother only did this to help Flora, but it was only hurting her. “I replay what he just said. This is my third trip. I am capable. I travel” (250-251). This trip to the Arctic was not her first trip, and this was not the first time she has ever gone off her meds. Flora finds out everything that has ever happened from before, during, and after the tumor.
Because her mother increased her medication dosage, she found out that her “tumor” was really a car accident that she was in when she was 10-years-old on the way back from Flambards, an amusement park that Flora references several times in the book. Because of the loss of her brother during the last few chapters of the book, he put together a letter for Flora to read so that she knows what really happens. Paige came back into her life because she knows that the kiss with Drake actually happened, and that Drake was playing with her when he said it never
happened. With help from Paige, Flora realized that she was being kept “safe” by her mother, when she was actually isolating her, and decided to leave home with Paige. Flora knew that she was better when she was off her medications and when she could actually live in peace. Also, that this wild goose chase of trying to find Drake, allowed her to find herself as a person. To show herself who really is that person she sees in the mirror. To always remember, “‘Flora, be brave’” (290). The One Memory of Flora Banks was a well put together book. There were times where it got very repetitive about how Flora thought about things, but it showed what she went through with the loss of her memory. The plot kept my attention though, the way that it moved along smoothly allowed the story to build into the story it became. The way the author portrayed Flora allowed me, as a reader, to understand everything that she went through with her brain injury. The repetitiveness got quite irritating because Flora would repeat the same things that she just heard over again in her head so she could understand the concept of what was being said. I understand that it was very difficult for her to understand things, so it was necessary to have Flora repeat everything she heard or read, it made the story. Emily Barr did a wonderful job portraying the life that Flora as well as her family members had to go through. In one of the chapters, Paige was talking to Flora and saying that they were not friends anymore since Flora kissed Drake, Paige’s boyfriend. Paige said something around the fact that her mother told her to stop being someone Flora walks all over and to stand up for herself. In return, Paige lost a friend. Paige was never mentioned in the middle of the book when Flora was trying to find Drake, but I can imagine how she felt when she found out Flora was gone. Everyone in this story was affected by Flora in some way, whether that be directly or indirectly, including the reader. The way the plot moved slowly allowed me to comprehend what everyone in that story was going through.
Now I wished that I could pen a letter to my school to be read at the opening assembly that would tell them how wrong we had all been. You should see Zachary Taylor, I’d say.” Lily is realizing now that beauty comes in all colors. She is also again being exposed to the fact that her way of being raised was wrong, that years and years of history was false. “The whole time we worked, I marveled at how mixed up people got when it came to love.
Although in Breath, Eyes, Memory, by Edwidge Danticat, Sophie loves and cares very much for her mother Martine, the relationship between the two women is strained and somewhat adversarial. This is due to the negative circumstances surrounding Sophie's existence. Sophie is the product of her mother's rape, and her mother can not stop thinking about this aspect of their relationship. She has nightmares about the rape every night, and these nightmares are more intense when Sophie is living with her.
She immediately falls in love with Flora, the youngest child and is excited to meet Miles, the older child. When she sees Flora for the first time, she says “She was the most beautiful child I had ever seen.” (30). She also asks Mrs. Grose, “And the little boy – does he look like her?
For this paper I read the novel The Memory Keeper’s Daughter by Kim Edwards, this novel is told in the span of 25 years, it is told by two characters David and Caroline, who have different lives but are connect through one past decision. The story starts in 1964, when a blizzard happens causing the main character, Dr. David Henry to deliver his own twins. During the delivery the son named Paul is fine but the daughter named Phoebe has something wrong with her. The doctor realizes that the daughter has Down syndrome, he is shocked and age remembers his own childhood when his sister was always sick, her dyeing at an early and how that effected his mother. He didn’t want that to happen to his wife, so David told the nurse to bring Phoebe to an institution, so that his wife wouldn’t suffer. The nurse, Caroline didn’t think this was right, but brings Phoebe to the institution anyways. Once Caroline sees the institution in an awful state she leaves with the baby and
...y the governess brings him up, but also to “all the rest.” These equivocal words refer to the initiation to sex by the governess, which is reinforced by Mile’s pointing out that she “knows what a boy wants!” After Mrs. Grose and Flora leave Bly, the two are once again alone, faced with a tyrannical and silent environment leaving the governess thinking they epitomize “some young couple…on their wedding night.”
America, in the early twentieth century, was centered on the Progressive Era. This was a period of unrest and reform. Monopolies continued in spite of the Sherman Antitrust Act of 1890. Social problems flourished in the U.S. During the 1910s labor unions continued to grow as the middle classes became more and more unhappy. Unsafe working conditions were underscored by the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory fire in which hundreds of female workers were killed. The plight of the Negro worsened, all while women finally received the right to vote through the ratification of the nineteenth amendment. Although this was a turbulent time in America, it was also a time to remember. During this time period, Emma Goldman devoted all of her attention to the cause of upholding the first amendment clause of freedom of speech. The right to free speech is one of the most fundamental American guarantees. However, defining the limits of free speech has never been an easy task.
Mary Cassatt was most widely known for her impressionist pieces that depicted mother (or nanny) and child. She was faced with many struggles throughout her life and received much criticism, even after her death in 1926. She found it difficult to receive appropriate recognition for her pieces during her early career. Many were unaccepted by the Salon. Cassatt lived for many years in France after her successful career, which ended abruptly when she went blind. Her talent placed her pieces in many famous museums throughout the world and landed her name among the famous artists of her time. As well as paving the way for powerful women, like herself. She lived during a time of suffragettes searching for equality.
Mrs. Grose may or may not see the ghosts the same as the governess. After realizing the governess is quite scared of these ghosts, she might be beginning to play a scheme to get full control over Flora. Mrs. Grose w...
When Peter Quint and Miss Jessel were alive, they destroyed the innocence of Flora and Miles as well. It is suggested many times throughout the book, that Miss Jessel, the former governess, and Peter Quint, the vallette, were having an affair. Because this novella was written in the Victorian Era, it was not proper to write about subjects such as sex or intimacy period; therefore it is unclear about what really happened. However, it is clear that the children witnessed this affair and corruptness between their governess and vallette because Henry James confirms it through this passage, “What it was most impossible to get rid of was the cruel idea that, whatever I had seen, Miles and Flora had seen more - things terrible and unguessable and that sprang from dreadful passages of intercourse in the past” (James, 76). Although the governess could not fix the innocence that had already been destroyed by the inappropriate affair between Miss Jessel and Peter Quint, she certainly tried her hardest to save what innocence was
In many stories that one reads, characters exhibit numerous behaviors throughout the story such as excitement, sadness, and loneliness. A fairytale will have happy character behaviors and end happily, whereas depressed characters the story may end melancholy, which can affect the outcome of the story. In the short story “A Sorrowful Women” written by Gail Godwin, the main character that is unnamed exhibits several behaviors. Such as a mental illness, behaviors of not wanting a family anymore, and the women shows behaviors that she’s not happy with the performance of a mother and wife. For she’d shows these behaviors at the end of the story the sorrowful women
faith to reject fate. Therefore, she detaches herself from her strong affection for “Elizabeth,” and accepts the reality that God has taken her to “everlasting state.” The speaker compares the death of the child to nature: “corn and grass are in their season mown” (10) to reveal her sadness that her child does not live long as it is common in the natural order. But the speaker concludes with comfort in her faith that it is in “His [God’s] hand alone that Guides nature and fate” (14).
... let Flora run free, he “[speaks] with resignation, even good humour, the words which absolved and dismissed [her] for good. ‘She’s only a girl’ ” (114) to which she states “I didn’t protest that, even in my heart. Maybe it was true” (114).
...and her attitude to her father and his work began to change. So while the killing was underway her and her brother were picking up sticks to make a teepee out of. Suddenly there was a lot of commotion and Flora was running free. Her father told her to shut the gate. She ran to the gate and just had just enough time to close it. Instead of closing the gate she opened it wide and let the horse run free. Laird got there just in time to see her do it. When her father and Henry showed up they thought that she didn’t get there in time. They simply got the gun and the knives they used and jumped in the truck. On the way out they stopped and picked up Laird who was begging to go.
Anne Bradstreet starts off her letter with a short poem that presents insight as to what to expect in “To My Dear Children” when she says “here you may find/ what was in your living mother’s mind” (Bradstreet 161). This is the first sign she gives that her letter contains not just a mere retelling of adolescent events, but an introspection of her own life. She writes this at a very turbulent point in history for a devout Puritan. She lived during the migration of Puritans to America to escape the persecution of the Catholic Church and also through the fragmentation of the Puritans into different sects when people began to question the Puritan faith.
Gail Godwin's short story "A Sorrowful Woman" revolves around a wife and mother who becomes overwhelmed with her husband and child and withdraws from them, gradually shutting them completely out of her life. Unsatisfied with her role as dutiful mother and wife, she tries on other roles, but finds that none of them satisfy her either. She is accustomed to a specific role, and has a difficult time coping when a more extensive array of choices is presented to her. This is made clear in this section of the story.