Judging from the other reviews, the awards, and multiple accolades Thom Jones's writings, and "The Pugilist at Rest" in particular, have received, I am apparently in quite the minority. But here goes: I found an inherent falseness and overwritten emotion throughout the stories. Jones too often tells the reader what he/she should be feeling instead of letting the reader respond sans prescription. Case in point: "I Want to Live!" The son-in-law is the "good guy" (obviously the author -- tacky) who gives the dying woman Schopenhauer to read and narcotic medication to ease the unbearable pain no one else will even acknowledge. This revitalizes the woman in the extreme (I believe she thanks God for her son-in-law at some point, which struck me as the author thanking God for the character of himself as he portrayed himself in the story -- again, ooh, tacky). Obviously, Jones digs Schopenhauer and through the character of the woman tells us that philosophy from just the right guy will turn it all around for us as we are dying an excruciating death. Please. This situation probably "actually happened" just this way in Jones's life, but it doesn't mean the recounting of it reveals the truth. I also found technical medical error in the description of the effect of certain drugs on the woman's pain. I have to paraphrase re: the effect of methadone, something like "circles of orange orgasms blossoming through her body." Methadone has a long half-life; taken orally, as in the story, it would take a long time to take effect. Methadone works as a slow build toward pain relief -- good relief, but hardly orgasmic -- as opposed to an injection of morphine, for which an orgasmic description would have been appropriate.
I always looked at death as such a sad thing that is eventually going to occur to everyone. However, after reading this book, it made me realize death can actually be a beautiful thing. Death allows a person to go to a next life, one where they will be loved and others will be there for them. It was interesting to be able to read about stories that these hospice care workers witnessed themselves. I have experienced a few deaths within my life and I never coped with them very well. After reading this book, I honestly believe I will be able to look at the positive side of death and be able to deal with my emotions better. I can also help others surrounding me deal with a death that they are experiencing. This book was filled with information that I loved learning. For example, I never knew that a dying person can choose a time to die. The thought of this never occurred to me before. I always thought that when it was someone’s time to go, they had no choice. But, a dying person can “put off” passing on until they see a certain person or event that has great significance in their life. Nevertheless, there are still people who will wait to die until they’re all alone in the room. This book makes you think of real life situations and think what you would do in them. Taken as a whole, it was a very in depth book that changes the way you would naturally perceive
Stephens,R., (2002) The moral meaning of morphine drips: A modern shibboleth denied. Midwest Quarterly, 43(3), 346.
No matter how much he put her through, she kept fighting for her life. I was confused by this because, in my eyes her life was completely over. I did not see how she could ever live a functioning life after all of the things that she went through. I would have thought that this reality would have been a reason for her to give up and choose fiction. Fiction would have been the easy way out of the pain, loses, and suffering that she faces and would continue to face. Then I thought to myself that is what makes humans amazing. Being able to endure the challenges of life and keep going. Originally, I thought she was a fool to keep going then I realized that she was strong. If I was her I would have chosen my reality
Into the Kill Zone: A Cop’s Eye View of Deadly Force, by David Klinger, explores the effects that shooting a deadly weapon will have on law enforcement officers. The author interviews over eighty men and women from a number of police agencies spread across four states. He conducts these interviews to note the pre and post mental conceptions police officers have after shooting a gun in the line of duty. Klinger shares his interviewees’ stories in the novel to show readers how pulling the trigger of a gun can cause a variety of issues both within and outside of a police officer’s life.
Now that the summary is out there for all who did not get to read the story let’s make some connections to everyday life. In the story is it said by the author that, “All the while I hated myself for having wept before the needle went in, convinced that the nurse and my mother we...
Louise, the unfortunate spouse of Brently Mallard dies of a supposed “heart disease.” Upon the doctor’s diagnosis, it is the death of a “joy that kills.” This is a paradox of happiness resulting into a dreadful ending. Nevertheless, in reality it is actually the other way around. Of which, is the irony of Louise dying due to her suffering from a massive amount of depression knowing her husband is not dead, but alive. This is the prime example to show how women are unfairly treated. If it is logical enough for a wife to be this jovial about her husband’s mournful state of life then she must be in a marriage of never-ending nightmares. This shows how terribly the wife is being exploited due her gender in the relationship. As a result of a female being treated or perceived in such a manner, she will often times lose herself like the “girl
The medical profession’s godlike attitude in “The Yellow Wallpaper” demonstrates this arrogance. The Rest cure that Dr. Weir Mitchell prescribed, which is mentioned in Gilman’s work, reflects men’s disparaging attitudes. His Rest cure calls for complete rest, coerced feeding and isolation. Mitchell, a neurosurgeon specializing in women’s nervous ailments, expounded upon his belief for women’s nervous conditions when he said,
“A Story about the Body”, a prose poem by Robert Hass, is literally about a man who supposedly loves a woman but then finds out about her health conditions and then changes his mind. This poem, when I read it, was more like a short story than a poem. The poem uses imagery and a variety of adjectives which allow the reader to put themselves in the story as if they were watching it happen.
In 1892, the “rest cure” was a common practice to treat women with a nervous illness (Stiles). By diagnosing his wife with a nervous depression, the physician-husband would most likely believed that bed rest was the only reasonable treatment. However, as the story progresses we see the narrator plunge deeper into madness and she becomes ever more obsessed with the yellow wallpaper.
The author is an award winning journalist, Virginia Morris has devoted her career to research as well as writing about health care, political issues, medical research and related social issues for over two and half decades. After winning the Books for a Better Life Award, the book instantly became the best-selling when first released in the year 1986. An updated edition was published in 2004. She has also the authored ‘Talking about Death’, which came out in paperback in 2004.
This essay was depressing, but also impressive. There are two characters, and as I mentioned, one is the sympathetic one and the other is the empathetic one. In the essay, It Will Look Like a Sunset by Kelly Sundberg, she takes the disturbing moments of her life, gets a handle on them, and puts them together to create a sense of literature with language and style. She was married, and it was once a love story, like most. But, she then explains why she stayed and endured years of emotional and physical abuse from her husband, Caleb. The first paragraph of the essay starts off beautifully. It says, “I was twenty-six, having spent most of my twenties delaying adulthood, and he was twenty-four and enjoyed reputation as a partier. The pregnancy was a surprise, and we married months later.” (Sundberg, 208) And following that later on, “We didn’t want a church wedding, but our families insisted. Faith was what made marriage sacred. Faith was what kept people together.” (Sundberg, 209) The author creates a connection between her life, faith, and marriage. Expressing that having confidence in her marriage and having trust kept them together. Her pregnancy was a surprise and that also kept them together. Faith is the connection between God and herself. Sundberg mentioned that her and her husband were together two years before he started to abuse her. With him first pushing her against the wall, then two years later, he hit her. Following a year later, he hit her again. Her argument was that her husband wanted to change, so he attended therapy and anger management. Nonetheless, that did not help
Diane was a patient of Dr. Timothy Quill, who was diagnosed with acute myelomonocytic leukemia. Diane overcame alcoholism and had vaginal cancer in her youth. She had been under his care for a period of 8 years, during which an intimate doctor-patient bond had been established. It was Dr. Quill’s observation that “she was an incredibly clear, at times brutally honest, thinker and communicator.” This observation became especially cogent after Diane heard of her diagnosis. Dr. Quill informed her of the diagnosis, and of the possible treatments. This series of treatments entailed multiple chemotherapy sessions, followed by a bone marrow transplant, accompanied by an array of ancillary treatments. At the end of this series of treatments, the survival rate was 25%, and it was further complicated in Diane’s case by the absence of a closely matched bone-marrow donor. Diane chose not to receive treatment, desiring to spend whatever time she had left outside of the hospital. Dr. Quill met with her several times to ensure that she didn’t change her mind, and he had Diane meet with a psychologist with whom she had met before. Then Diane complicated the case by informing Dr. Quill that she be able to control the time of her death, avoiding the loss of dignity and discomfort which would precede her death. Dr. Quinn informed her of the Hemlock Society, and shortly afterwards, Diane called Dr. Quinn with a request for barbiturates, complaining of insomnia. Dr. Quinn gave her the prescription and informed her how to use them to sleep, and the amount necessary to commit suicide. Diane called all of her friends to say goodbye, including Dr. Quinn, and took her life two days after they met.
Death is something that is sometimes misunderstood and hard to accept. In James Baldwin’s short story, “Sonny’s Blues”, the reader learns of four deaths that had occurred during the narrator’s life time. One of the deaths that the narrator describes was of his daughter, Gracie. Gracie had died of polio. Originally, she was thought to only have a cold. Four days later, Gracie fell and there was no sound. When Isabel decided to go see, she found her daughter curled up on the floor and not breathing. By the time Gracie found her breath, she let out a horrifying scream. “And when she did scream, it was the worst sound, Isabel says, that she'd ever heard in all her life, and she still hears it sometimes in her dreams. Isabel will sometimes wake me up with a low, moaning, strangling sound and I have to be quick to awaken her and hold her to me and where Isabel is weeping against me seems a mortal wound” (92). From the quote above, the reader can picture the suffering Isabel is under from the lost of her daughter. One can also tell that she has not been able to deal with it completely by her reoccurring nightmares. Losing a child is very hard to deal with. It brings a lot of pain, sadness, but most of all much suffering. It is s...
Vigilantism is deeply rooted in American tradition (Brown, 1975). Arising in response to an absence of law and order in early frontier regions, and a concern with self-protection and self-preservation, vigilantes were seen as valued members of society. One of the primary reasons for the value of vigilantes is that their jurisdiction began where the law ended (Burrows, 1976; Perry & Pugh, 1989). Moreover, vigilantes partook in behaviors that legal authorities would not, could not, and should not perform (Brown, 1975).
...sn’t a sad story or horrific at all. He lived a long fulfilled life and had an infinite amount of things to show for it, there was nothing to be sad about. While reading De Hennezel this memory really hit me and made me see death how she saw it and how others should too.