Karma Círculo Karma—an Analysis of Ordinary Grace
Life and death are two frequent topics in William Kent Krueger’s Bildungsroman, Ordinary Grace, affecting all of its characters in one way or another. The novel takes place in 1961 New Bremen, Minnesota where a World War II veteran and minister, Nathan Drum, and his nuclear family reside. This Steinbeckian novel mostly revolves around his children and their real life exposure to an evasive topic: death. Numerous times in the novel, it is heavily implied that Nathan Drum has killed in the war, and suffers some sort of post-traumatic stress which will later be transferred to his two sons, Frank and Jake. The multiple deaths disturbing Nathan’s sons and daughter both indirectly and directly affect
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Nathan as well and cast him to his own unrevealed, personal purgatory. The effects of death that have scarred Frank and Jake are forms of negative karma directed towards Nathan. Karma is primarily a Buddhist belief seen as: “bringing upon oneself inevitable results, good or bad, either in this life or in a reincarnation”(Dictionary.com). In this case, the karma is transported to Nathan’s children instead of his own upcoming life. Nathan isn’t necessarily an evil man, but a man with many internal struggles with the acceptance of past deeds, marriage, and sanity. Throughout the novel, it is stated that Nathan has trouble sleeping due to frequent nightmares and even has a fear of exploding fireworks. According to the National Institute of Mental Health, re-experiencing symptoms such as bad dreams and fearful reactions to everyday experiences, as well as hyperarousal symptoms e.g. difficulty sleeping, are major signs of PTSD. Nathan’s experience in the war is vaguely and briefly covered in a discussion between his son and his comrade, Gus. Gus implies that war is not a thing to be cherished and that not even God will save those scrambling across the field. He blatantly states that when a soldier is on the battlefield, they’re forced to kill complete strangers and that his father was an unwilling participant in the senseless slaughtering of millions. Now, Nathan would never want his children to witness murder, or death for that matter. Sadly, this novel is situationally ironic in the sense that, in a single summer time, the boys will be desensitized to the core just like their father. The first death in the novel is of one of Frank and Jake’s classmates: Bobby Cole. Bobby Cole is a child of silence who finds happiness in the smallest things in life; unfortunately, the citizens of New Bremen dismiss his eccentric personality as a disease and treat him as if he is incapable of basic human processes such as learning. One day, Bobby Cole visits the local train tracks to play, much like he does every other day, except that day, he would not come back. Bobby Cole’s death can be seen as a symbol representing the death of known cohorts around soldiers during time of war. Most soldiers in WWII faced such a tragedy daily. These types of deaths are a hit or miss when it comes to the grieving process. For Frank and Jake, this death sparked many questions and speculation rather than utter distress, since this is just the beginning. For Nathan, on the other hand, this particular death only fuels his nightmares in remembrance of those who were innocent who have fallen around him. In chapter three, Frank and Jake decide to walk along the railroad tracks where Bobby Cole met his demise. While walking, Frank notices a Native American man emerge from the bushes and disappear towards the embankment where a second man, seemingly sleeping, lays his head. The man, known as Warren, pronounces the “sleeping” man dead as he steadily sips out of a grimy cup. As Frank and Jake carefully watch through the surrounding shrubbery, Warren notices and invites Frank over to look at the body. Despite Jake’s reluctance to go, he tags along with his eager brother in fear of being left alone. While Frank reflects upon the rotting cadaver, Warren states that the itinerant’s death was a “good death”, meaning that the man was not murdered, but died of natural causes. This particular death intrigues both of the boys, filling them with adrenaline, for the man before them is an absolute stranger—an itinerant. “Itinerant,’ she shook her head faintly, “someone’s entire life reduced to a single word.”(Krueger, Ch.28). Nathan and Gus aren’t the only war veterans represented in Krueger’s work.
Doyle, a New Bremen police officer, is also a suspected victim of aggression and the horrors of war throughout chapter nine. Around page 93, for the sake of having fun, Doyle commands Gus to hand him an M-80 as he picks up an innocent bullfrog and lights the explosive in its mouth. This reveals that Doyle may be suffering from an aggression-based disease. Frank simply stands there, paralyzed, and watches in horror as bullfrog blood and innards explode all over his being. “My shirt was spotted with frog gut and blood. It was in my hair and dripping along my jawline”(Krueger, Ch.9) This can compare to the depictions of war where soldiers are photographed drenched in the blood of friends and enemies. In particular, World War II was notorious for using land mines. When one treads on a land mine by mistake, their entire body explodes, like the bullfrog in Ordinary Grace. The eerie descriptiveness of this section and Krueger’s inclusion of a veteran character partaking in abuse leads me to think that Nathan’s children are sharing similar experiences that Nathan was forced to partake in. Frank becomes delusional soon after this death. After heading back to the house in pure disgust and aggravation, he looks to his sister, Ariel, and sees the bullfrog in her place—“Her head turned and she looked at me and for a moment it was not Ariel but a creature much afraid and I thought of the frog in that moment when …show more content…
the explosive was shoved down its throat”(Krueger, Ch.9) With another account of passing tallied up, the concept of the life cycle digs its way deeper into the boys’ psyche. “Moreover, there shall be a great cry in all the land of Egypt, such as there has not been before and such as shall never be again…”(Exodus 11:6) Nathan’s firstborn, Ariel, is found pregnant and dead by a river later in the novel. This death shoots through the family’s hearts like silver bullets and renders them emotionally disabled for quite a while. Frank and Jake begin to doubt God’s presence due to the passing of their sister. I call this death the “final straw” because, by now, the boys disperse into their individual grieving processes filled with isolation and brief thoughts of suicide. Eventually, they bring themselves back together to bond while their psyches are still bleeding from the given blow. Nathan breaks down for the first time in the novel, yet Jake doesn’t shed a single tear. This is the ultimate desensitization of the Drum boys. This is the climax, this is it—the final straw. After this particular death, the boys are implied to be immune to the inevitable deaths to come. The four major deaths explained above have impacted the Drum family in one way or another.
In the beginning of the novel, Frank and Jake are rather adventurous and fun-loving, but as the story progresses, the boys lose themselves individually more with each death. However, their overall bond never seems to be broken. Perhaps this very bond is what lessens the intensity of each demise—it provides safety and comfort because they confide in each other. Nathan never had the pleasure of having someone to latch onto during the all-out effects of war until he returned home with surviving soldiers. Although Frank and Jake didn’t witness the deaths of thousands, they were robbed of their innocence, which was something Nathan would have never wanted for them at such a young
age. In general, this novel is heavily ironic and Krueger’s inclusion of multiple veteran characters and tendency to flesh out the descriptions of scenes of demise, corpse discovery, and overall violence bring me to heavily believe that everything is a vicious cycle. Even though this novel excludes any principles of Buddhism, karma exists in the book’s universe. Nathan Drum, undeniably, has taken lives in the “war to end all wars”. He never discusses this with his children, though it is talked about through other veterans and odd behaviors expressed, especially around the fourth of July. Even though Nathan is a holy man now, he is not completely forgiven for his sins, or wrongdoings. Since karma is transferrable from one life to another, it is possible for his karma to be reflected in his children’s lives. This extends his suffering because he has to watch his children witness multiple losses first-hand and watch their innocence slowly deteriorate; this is Nathan’s individual purgatory. As for the children, which are the bulk of this paper, they slowly turn into their father towards the end. I personally feel Krueger meant for this novel to be a message of peace. With all the violence that goes on in the world today, people need a reminder that this, even though it’s unlikely, could happen to them.
“Every war is everyone’s war”... war will bring out the worst in even the strongest and kindest people. The book tells about how ones greed for something can destroy everything for both people and animals leaving them broken beyond repair, leaving them only with questions… Will they ever see their family again? Will they ever experience what it’s like to
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...
In the novel, Eldon and Frank Starlight, who are father and son, have a strained relationship. When Eldon accused Frank of an inability to understand war because he had never fought in one before, Frank said, “‘Not one of my own, leastways.’ ‘What’s that supposed to mean?’ ‘Means I’m still livin’ the one you never finished,’ (Wagamese 168).” He was explaining to his father that experiences don’t need to be physically experienced; they may also be mentally experienced. Frank knows a different type of war. It is the war where he grew up not knowing anything about his past, other than the fact that he is an Indigenous person. Whereas, Eldon’s war experience was a physical experience with the trauma and post traumatic stress of fighting in the Korean War. Inevitably, Frank ends up realizing that these stories though different, through empathy and an attempt to understand each other, they can bring people together. Wagamese’s strong connection to empathy is a grueling one. In an interview done with Shelagh Rogers, Wagamese spoke about not being there for his children. He said, "The lack of a significant parent is really, really a profound sorrow, a profound loss. It's a bruise that never really heals" (Rogers). With the difficult history of Wagamese’s family, he wanted to be able to pass on those meaningful lessons learned to his children. This is important because having learnt something like that from a parent or guardian is really meaningful to a child; it is a part of the parent and their past that will never leave and carries on through the child. The authors empathetic portrayal of his characters is direct result of the cultural influences of his
Due to his brother’s death while fighting alongside him in the war, Michael becomes emotionally devastated, and as a result, experiences survivor’s guilt, leading to his suicide. Although this letter is not from Death’s perspective, it still highlights an example of how physical destruction caused by humans can lead to emotional devastation for other humans. Death himself becomes emotionally devastated when Rudy Steiner, Liesel’s best friend, dies from the bomb on Himmel Street. He confesses, “Oh crucified Christ, Rudy … He lay in bed with one of his sisters. She must have kicked him or muscled her way into the majority of the bed space because he was on the very edge with his arm around her … Where was Rudy’s comfort? Where was someone to alleviate this robbery of his life? … He does something to me, that boy. Every time. It’s his only detriment. He steps on my heart. He makes me cry.” (531) This quote shows that Death is emotionally affected by the aftermath of the bomb, because he loses someone that he admires. As a result, Death feels like crying, and leads readers to believe that humanity is destructive. As a result, numerous examples from the book, including Death’s own experience, demonstrate that humanity has the capability to harm the physical world, as well as other
Setting expatiates the theme of loss of innocence. For example, the four major characters in this story are sixteen and seventeen years old, which is the age when teenagers prepare to end their childhood and become adults. Also, the Devon school, where the story takes place, is a place where boys make the transition to full adulthood, and so this setting shows more clearly the boys' own growth. Finally, World War II, which in 1942 is raging in Europe, forces these teenage boys to grow up fast; during their seventeenth year they must evaluate everything that the war means to them and decide whether to take an active ...
Amazing Grace, allows the world outside of South Bronx, to grasp a small understanding of what it is like to live a destitute life. The inequality issues, healthcare problems, and educational shortcomings of the district are a few of Kozol's problems concerning the treatment of the lower class society today. The presence of drugs, the acts of prostitution, and the side items that come with living in the ghetto, are not things that should be present in a child's everyday life. Kozol's examination of the lives of the people living in these slums, clearly shows that these people deserve the same freedoms and comforts that others in privileged classes take for granted.
War always seems to have no end. A war between countries can cross the world, whether it is considered a world war or not. No one can be saved from the reaches of a violent war, not even those locked in a safe haven. War looms over all who recognize it. For some, knowing the war will be their future provides a reason for living, but for others the war represents the snatching of their lives without their consent. Every reaction to war in A Separate Peace is different, as in life. In the novel, about boys coming of age during World War II, John Knowles uses character development, negative diction, and setting to argue that war forever changes the way we see the world and forces us to mature rapidly.
Jonathan Kozol's Amazing Grace is a book about the trials and tribulations of everyday life for a group of children who live in the poorest congressional district of the United States, the South Bronx. Their lives may seem extraordinary to us, but to them, they are just as normal as everyone else. What is normal? For the children of the South Bronx, living with the pollution, the sickness, the drugs, and the violence is the only way of life many of them have ever known.
Sittser, G. L. (2004). A grace disguised: how the soul grows through loss (Expanded ed.). Grand Rapids, Mich.: Zondervan.
As the boys witness death and mutilation all around them, any preconceived notion about the indoctrination, "the enemy" and the "rights and wrongs" of the conflict disappear, leaving them angry and perplexed. The story is not about heroism but about toil and futility and the divide between the idea of war and the real life and its values. The selected passages are full of violence and death and loss and a kind of perpetual suffering and terror that most of us have never and hopefully will never experience. Both authors ability to place the reader right there on the front line with the main character so vividly, not just in terms of what he physically experienced and witnessed All the complicated, intense and often completely numbed emotions that came along...
It is apparent that during war time emotions are checked at the door and ones whole psyche is altered. It is very difficult to say what the root causes of this are due to the many variables that take play in war, from death of civilians to the death of friends. However, in "Enemies" and "Friends" we see a great development among characters that would not be seen anywhere else. Although relying on each other to survive, manipulation, and physical and emotional struggle are used by characters to fight there own inter psychological wars. Thus, the ultimate response to these factors is the loss and gain of maturity among Dave Jensen and Lee Strunk.
For Finny and Gene, the summer session at Devon was a time of blissful happiness and a time where they allowed themselves to become utterly overtaken by their own illusions. The summer session was the complete embodiment of peace and freedom, and Gene saw Devon as a haven of peace. To them, the war was light years away and was almost like a dream than an actual event. At Devon, it was hard for them to imagine that war could even exist. Finny and Gene forged the Super Suicide Society of the Summer Session and acted out in the most wild and boisterous ways. Missing dinner or being absent from school for days to go to the beach did not even earn them a reprimand. “I think we reminded them of what peace was like, we boys of sixteen....We were careless and wild, and I suppose we could be thought of as a sign of the life the war was being fought to prese...
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.
Thinking that the war was just an ideal character. Convincing the reader to believe the boys didn't know the risk they were taking by being in this war. They way the boys viewed it, shows that, true their are some hard times in wars, but their minds are young and they thought it was just another thing to talk about. When they should have been taking things more serious, but thinking about the good parts helped them to keep a hold on their sanity. "They ought to have been mediators and guides to the world of maturity, the world of work, of duty, of culture, of progress to the future", was the beliefs of the boys after their friend Behn dies. Their generation thought that the authorities were going to look after, and take care of them, the authorities were thought of real highly by them. Until their friend passed away, then everything changed. "We had to realize that our generation was more to be trusted than theirs", this is where they came to reality that, everybody was taking care of their selves, and didn't want anything to do with other peoples problems.
Ordinary People starts off already in a broken world. Buck has died, and Conrad has already attempted suicide, therefore, healing is a main focus throughout the book. Beth and Calvin’s marriage is also very rocky and they together are trying to see if things will work out by healing and saving their relationship. Judith Guest shows the journey through Conrad’s life and his progress to becoming completely healed. Beth and Calvin’s relationship is also monitored and in the end just goes downhill by Beth leaving.