The Notebook by Nicholas Sparks is an endearing novel that includes the ups and downs of a life long romance. Sparks tells the story of Allie and Noah's relationship, how they first meet, grow apart, and are then reunited fourteen years later. The story is told from Noah's perspective. Many of the details he shares are letters that Noah wrote to Allie when they were younger. These letters are important because they are memories that Allie no longer has. Allie suffers from a neurodegenerative disease known as Alzheimers. Alzheimers plays a crucial role in this novel because the story revolves around Allie's lost memories. Alzheimers is a disease that affects the brain. One of the first symptoms is difficulty in remembering events. In 2015 it was estimated that there were over three million people in the United States with Alzheimers. An out of those three million people, almost two thirds of them are women. Alzheimers disease is the sixth leading cause of death in the United States. Alzheimers is one …show more content…
The story of Allie and Noah's love is being retold to Allie by Noah because Alzheimers has left her with only fragments of her memories. One day, when Noah was reading a story to Allie, Allie suddenly looked up at Noah and put her hand on his hand. In that moment Noah knew that she remembered the story he was telling her (a story of when they were married). Suddenly after they held hands for a couple moments, Allie lost the memory and started to get confused and started to shake. This is very common with Alzheimers patients, they may remember something for a moment but then loose the memory and get confused. In the novel, Alzheimers is presented accurately which makes her diagnosis believable to the reader. Alzheimers is not downplayed in this novel, Alzheimers is shown as a brutal disease. Allie shows all the symptoms a normal Alzheimers patient would
Lisa Genova, the author of Still Alice, a heartbreaking book about a 50-year-old woman's sudden diagnosis of Alzheimer's disease, graduated valedictorian from Bates College with a degree in Biopsychology and holds a Ph.D. in Neuroscience from Harvard University. She is a member of the Dementia Advocacy, Support Network International and Dementia USA and is an online columnist for the National Alzheimer's Association. Genova's work with Alzheimer's patients has given her an understanding of the disorder and its affect not only on the patient, but on their friends and family as well (Simon and Schuster, n.d.).
After Allies father catches her and Noah making out in the truck, he tells Allie that he wants to have the chance to meet her friend, so he politely asked Allie to invite Noah over Sunday for dinner. While seating at the dinner table, Noah was asked what job he does for a living. After Noah stated that he was a laborer it was pretty clear by their facial expressions (especially her mother’s) that they did not approve of their relationship. Later, Anne makes the statement that “summers almost over” giving her daughter the idea that her and Noah probably will not be seeing each other anymore. Moreover, Anne decided to tell Noah about Allie’s school plans, and how he was not in the plan. Anne believes that their relationship is just a summer fling, or a short-term initial attraction. This scene most certainly relates to chapter nine. Allie was unable to develop her Relationship of Choice simply because they did not find Noah suitable for her, mainly because he was not wealthy. Al...
In Ken Kesey’s novel One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest, the reader has the experience to understand what it was like to live in an insane asylum during the 1960’s. Kesey shows the reader the world within the asylum of Portland Oregon and all the relationships and social standings that happen within it. The three major characters’ groups, Nurse Ratched, the Black Boys, and McMurphy show how their level of power effects how they are treated in the asylum. Nurse Ratched is the head of the ward and controls everything that goes on in it, as she has the highest authority in the ward and sabotages the patients with her daily rules and rituals. These rituals include her servants, the Black Boys, doing anything she tells them to do with the patients.
The two resembled what Allie and Noah’s life could have been like in the future, and would have if things had remained as they were. Allie’s mother although confessing that she had loved this man and in fact still did, as seen by the tears shed during the scene, began ensuring Allie of her love for her father. This had been the man she had married, raised children, with, and grew old with; he had always been kind and treated her with the utmost respect (Notebook 2004). The exchange theory ahs been illustrated by the two characters as Allie’s mother learned to love one another through having lived and worked with each other to raise their daughter and maintain a stable household for their family. Although she had expressed her unhappiness and told Allie about their runaway attempt she tried to convince her that idealism is not something she could afford if she wanted to succeed and have a successful life. Furthermore, the exchange theory in spite of being present in both Allie and her mother within the film is represented in contrasting lights as were both presented with the same dilemma and Allie chose romantic love over economic security.
Alzheimer is a dementia type of disease named after Dr. Alois alzheimer that slowly destroys memory and thinking skills,and eventually , the ability to do simple things, or recognize their family. The first case occurred in the 1906 when a woman died on a unusual mental illness. After she died Dr.Alois examined her brain , amyloid plaques and neurofibrillary. Alzheimer’s is in older people the most common cause of dementia. Dementia is a loss of remembering ,thinking and reasoning skills, that intervenes with your daily life and activities. It is very common in people over sixty years of age. People younger than sixty years can also
Noah reads their love story to Allie everyday in hopes that she will remember him and everything they have experienced together. Throughout most of the day as he reads to her, she does not recall that the story is about herself and Noah. She also does not remember who her children and grandchildren are when they come to visit. At the end of the film Allie becomes lucid for a few moments and realizes that the story Noah is reading is their own and they begin to dance together. After a few short moments Allie relapses into Alzheimer’s and has no idea who Noah is and why he is there with
Allie Hamilton accurately depicts that she suffers from dementia. Her husband, Noah, visits her in a nursing home and reads her a book that consists of their memories. She does not recognize him nor remember any events he is reading out to her. She becomes lucid for a moment and remembers that that was the story she had written about how they’d met and instructed him to read it to her
The couple spent the summer together and developed the meaning of true love. One evening, Noah takes Allie, to an old farmhouse, tells her his dream of buying and restoring it one day, she tells him she wants to be a part of that dream, she wants the house white, have blue shutters, a wrap-around porch, and wants a room that overlooks the creek so she can paint. With all the excitement the two lost track of time and when she returned home she found out her parents called the police; her parents forbid her to ever see Noah again. Allies parents did not approve of the social differences in the teens upbringing. Allie’s mother moved her away to New York, for her to forget Noah, and interact with people of her social lifestyle at college.
Alzheimer’s disease is a form of dementia which is a brain disorder that impairs mental functioning. Dementia attacks the part of the brain which controls memory, language, and thought. It makes everyday tasks like remembering to brushing your teeth, or to pay your bills next to impossible to do, which is why so many people who are diagnosed with this disease are in complete care. This disease has different phases, the first being slight forgetfulness and then the persons emotions may heighten as well as language impairment, violent outbursts, loss of bladder control and from there it keeps getting worse until complete dysfunction of the brain occurs and eventually death, which most of the time is the result of infection.
Alzheimer’s disease was found more than a century ago but still there is little known and understood about the disease. AD attacks the medial temporal lobes which interferes with memory and the ability to reason and pay attention. (Wierenga and Bondi, 2011). People with AD also have increased atrophy of brain tissue and the brain is clogged with neurofibrillary tangles and senile plaques which are both believed to produce Alzheimer’s symptoms by disrupting the impulses between neurons (Sue et al. 2013). A look into what it feels like to have AD may give a better representation of how the person feels and how their loved ones feel.
Alzheimer’s disease (AD) is a progressive, terminal, degenerative brain disease. It is the fourth leading cause of death in adults and currently affects over four million people in the United States. This number is expected to increase over the next several years as the baby boomers age, until it reaches fourteen million by the year 2025.
The man, Noah, is a poet in Allie's eyes and he expresses love as, "Our souls were one, if you must know and never shall they be apart; With splendid dawn, your face aglow I reach for you and find my heart" (183). As teenagers, the two of these "love birds" had one summer of intense passion that was ended abruptly by Allie's parents disapproval. When Allie left New Bern the couple planned to keep in touch by writing letters, but because Allie's moms did not approve of Noah, she hid all his letters from her without Allie knowing. Noah continued to write but without a reply, his hopes dissolved. While Noah sat on his porch playing his guitar with his three-legged dog Clem, he reminisced about the adventures they had, foreshadowing the events that followed. "And if, in some distant place in the future, we see each other in our new lives, I will smile at you with joy, and remember how we spent a summer beneath the trees, learning from each other and growing in love. And maybe, for a brief moment, you'll feel it too, and you'll smile back, and savor the memories we will always share together" (151). There are surprises one would never expect and descriptions that one can't even imagine; they pull the reader in and paint a picture in the mind. This novel will make the reader cry, gasp, sigh, and cry once more.
The Notebook is about an elderly man who tells the story of his life with the one he loves the most, his wife. He tells the story to his wife, who has Alzheimer’s Disease, which is a degenerative disease that affects a person’s memory. She has no recollection of him or their life together, or even her own children. She wrote the story of their love herself, so that when he read the story to her, she would come back to him. There are three things that I would like to discuss about this movie.
Sparks was inspired by his wife’s grandparents, who spent sixty years together, and had a beautiful, yet rare, relationship that withstood the test of time and circumstances. Sparks believes that “true love exists and that there’s evidence of it every day.” (Sparks). The Notebook is a tender story about the everlasting and enduring power of true love between teenagers Noah and Allie, who forge an intense summer romance, and after years of separation caused by class differences find themselves reunited. After a fourteen year separation, Allie returns to visit Noah to determine what it was they shared and why it had such a lasting impact. Allie must make a decision between Lon, the man she promised to marry, and Noah the man she has always loved. As she decides, she thinks to herself, “She wanted something else, something different, something more. Passion and romance, perhaps, or maybe a quiet conversation in candlelit rooms, or perhaps something as simple as not being second.” The theme of love conquers all is the focus as Noah tries to regain Allie’s love and Allie struggles with telling Noah that she’s engaged to another man, yet still is in love with him. The story is told from two different points of view. The first is told in first person as Noah tells of his present life with Allie at Creekside Extended Care Home. The second is told in third person as Noah reads a story from a notebook
This theme is a big lesson learned throughout the whole story of Allie and Noah. She loves Noah with all of her heart when she is a young woman, and yet when they were separated for a period of time she finds her way back to him. When Allie sees Noah again for the first time in years, she realizes she never stopped loving him and her heart belongs to him. When she has to choose between Noah and Lon, she follows her heart and chooses the man to whom she loves most.