Everyone handles traumatic experiences differently. Everyone mourns differently. Some cry, and rely on others to help them through these hard times. Others shrug it off, keeping to themselves. In “The Last Unmapped Places”, the author, Rebecca Zurkewitz, has the main character handling her traumas oddly. Our main character, Rachel, uses this imaginary man, a webbed arm man, to direct her grief elsewhere. The story begins with what would most likely be a traumatic experience for most of us. On a stormy night, Rachel is struck by lightning outside her childhood home. Her parents would have been unaware of this incident if it wasn’t for Rachel’s twin sister, Hannah. “She stops because my sister’s hair is standing on end, fanned out like a sea …show more content…
Rachel had to support Hannah while she suffered from depression during her college years. While Rachel had her mind set on other things, like supporting her sister and her friends, she still felt the webbed-arm man’s presence. Rachel’s seizures didn’t show any signs of slowing down in her teens and twenties. Rachel explained that whenever she had these seizures her brain would always take her back to that incident when she was younger, picking up the scent of the burnt wood, and the presence of the webbed-arm man. At this point in the story, our author has built a lot of tension with this monster. She has been very good at making sure the reader still has the idea of the monster in the back of their mind. She has also made it apparent that her main character, Rachel, uses the monster as her way of mourning or coping. Whenever Rachel is experiencing something traumatic, like seizures, she feels the presence of the webbed-arm man. Leading to their transformation into adults, the twin’s connection never showed any signs of faulting. They would always reach out to each other to eat lunch and just hang out. During this time of adulthood, Hannah had acquired a boyfriend,
Diane Urban, for instance, was one of the many people who were trapped inside this horror. She “was comforting a woman propped against a wall, her legs virtually amputated” (96). Flynn and Dwyer appeal to the reader’s ethical conscience and emotions by providing a story of a victim who went through many tragedies. Causing readers to feel empathy for the victims. In addition, you began to put yourself in their shoes and wonder what you would do.
“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.
The Ghost Map was a historical piece of literature that was used to explain the V. cholera epidemic in London. The book, written by Steven Johnson, tells about how the water and the lack of proper sewage systems lead to a disease that killed many citizens and lead to panic for Londoners. Dr. John Snow, an anesthesiologist, began to research what played a role in the deaths and how it could be cured and stopped. He discovered that the disease was a waterborne disease after a series of interviews with London people in specific regions of London who managed to survive the plague. Mr. Snow learned that the survivor where drinking water from specific wells before they got sick so he went and gathered water samples, “Cholera wasn’t
Tracy and I sat down to prepare for our outing with my sister-in-law Shelly and her husband James, who were visiting from Kansas City. I must admit, I was a little skeptical about the thought of treasure hunting. James informed me that all we needed was a free membership with the website geocaching.com, and a hand held GPS unit or a GPS enabled smart phone. We then created an account and decided on a profile name. We were now ready to see what this treasure hunt was all about. We soon discovered it was a technology-driven game of hide and seek using global positioning satellites. Members are able to hide caches and log their coordinates for others to find. These hidden caches contain a log sheet for you to sign your profile name. Some cache containers are larger and contain “treasures” that you can trade for other items. Trackables are items that have special tracking codes so that you may track where they have been. Then there is the virtual cache, which is not a hidden object at all. These types of caches are usually historical landmarks or may just be places with an interesting view. To log these types of caches you must answer a question about the locale or post a picture of the specific landmark and post it to the website. Now that we had more of an idea of what we had gotten ourselves into, I was definitely more excited about the geocaching expedition that lay ahead.
“Well, Alice, my father said, if it had to happen to one of you, I’m glad it was you and not your sister” (57). Even though Alice was the victim of the horrid crime, she had to stabilize her own emotions, so that she could help her sister cope with this tragedy. Throughout Alice’s childhood, Jane struggled with alcoholism and panic attacks. “I wished my mother were normal, like other moms, smiling and caring, seemingly, only for her family” (37).
Her family life is depicted with contradictions of order and chaos, love and animosity, conventionality and avant-garde. Although the underlying story of her father’s dark secret was troubling, it lends itself to a better understanding of the family dynamics and what was normal for her family. The author doesn’t seem to suggest that her father’s behavior was acceptable or even tolerable. However, the ending of this excerpt leaves the reader with an undeniable sense that the author felt a connection to her father even if it wasn’t one that was desirable. This is best understood with her reaction to his suicide when she states, “But his absence resonated retroactively, echoing back through all the time I knew him. Maybe it was the converse of the way amputees feel pain in a missing limb.” (pg. 399)
In Amy Hempels’ Short Story “Going,” our journey with the narrator travels through loss, coping, memory, experience, and the duality of life. Throughout the story is the narrator’s struggle to cope with the passing of his mother, and how he transitions from a mixture of depression, denial, and anger, into a kind of acceptance and revelation. The narrator has lost his mother in a fire three states away, and proceeds on a reckless journey through the desert, when he crashes his car and finds himself hospitalized. Only his thoughts and the occasional nurse to keep him company. The narrator soon gains a level of discovery and realizations that lead to a higher understanding of the duality of life and death, and all of the experiences that come with being alive.
She explains how feeling vulnerable is exactly what people seek when going through hardships. How being recognized and desired after going through grief is homologous to what it means to be human. Butler points out that majority of society has troubles locking emotions up in their heads, and explains how hard it is for them to unlock their emotions in the fear of being unrecognized. That to be vulnerable, means to let others into our emotions while obtaining the ability to communicate in order to understand their emotions as well. Butler clarifies this by confessing that grief itself, and vulnerability, are the underlying examples of how we are substantially affected by other’s recognition. Though, with the capacity of vulnerability, we also create dimensions of negative connectedness as well, Butler
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
Throughout the novel, Still Missing written by Chevy Stevens, the protagonist, is taken on a frightening journey of being drugged, kidnapped, sexually abused, and eventually left to fend for herself. Because of the author's unique writing style and use of first person, a sense of understanding is created for the reader's feelings and reactions. At the beginning of the novel, Annie O’Sullivan was extremely oblivious to her surrounding and would never imagine something like this ever happening. As the chapters continued, and she began to reveal what happened to her the first few days, she was unsure of what to do other than to be in complete shock, unable to react and grasp the entire situation. As the reader, I was intrigued by the ‘journey’
...was a desperate act of a lonely, insane woman who could not bear to loose him. The structure of this story, however, is such that the important details are delivered in almost random order, without a clear road map that connects events. The ending comes as a morbid shock, until a second reading of the story reveals the carefully hidden details that foreshadow the logical conclusion.
In Amy Hempel’s Short Story “Going,” we take part in a journey with the narrator through loss, coping, memory, experience, and the duality of life. Throughout the story we see the narrator’s struggle through coping with the loss of his mother, and how he moves from a mixture of depression, denial, and anger, to a form of acceptance and revelation. The narrator has lost his mother to a fire three states away, and goes on a reckless journey through the desert, when he crashes his car and ends up hospitalized. Only his thoughts and the occasional nurse to keep him company. He then reaches a point of discovery and realizations that lead to a higher understanding of mortality, and all of the experiences that come with being alive.
Even when he tried to stay optimistic, fear and anxiety set in often in Schwartz’s mind. He experienced fear and anxiety related to impending death. Worries of missing out on his son growing up and not experiencing romantic moments with his wife ever again filled him with both terror and grief. He expressed this fear to his psychiatrist and his concern that he might be depressed. Dr Cassem assured him that crying was a sign of acknowledgment of his love for his family. He also worried if there was anything he could do t...
She continues in this sequel to talk about the abuse she faced and the dysfunction that surrounded her life as a child and as a teen, and the ‘empty space’ in which she lived in as a result. She talks about the multiple personalities she was exhibiting, the rebellious “Willie” and the kind “Carol”; as well as hearing noises and her sensory problems. In this book, the author puts more emphasis on the “consciousness” and “awareness” and how important that was for her therapeutic process. She could not just be on “auto-pilot” and act normal; the road to recovery was filled with self-awareness and the need to process all the pieces of the puzzle—often with the guidance and assistance of her therapist. She had a need to analyze the abstract concept of emotions as well as feelings and thoughts. Connecting with others who go through what she did was also integral to her
The characters in Alice Sebold’s The Lovely Bones are faced with the difficult task of overcoming the loss of Susie, their daughter and sister. Jack, Abigail, Buckley, and Lindsey each deal with the loss differently. However, it is Susie who has the most difficulty accepting the loss of her own life. Several psychologists separate the grieving process into two main categories: intuitive and instrumental grievers. Intuitive grievers communicate their emotional distress and “experience, express, and adapt to grief on a very affective level” (Doka, par. 27). Instrumental grievers focus their attention towards an activity, whether it is into work or into a hobby, usually relating to the loss (Doka par. 28). Although each character deals with their grief differently, there is one common denominator: the reaction of one affects all.