Leah’s Life Struggles In the story, Windows by Bernice Morgan, the protagonist, Leah, is convinced that she is dying. As the story progresses, she experiences a full range of emotions and thoughts about everyone and everything in her life. Leah struggles with mental and physical illnesses. Her biggest problem is her depression. The theme of depression is explored through Leah’s relationship with other characters and her surroundings. Leah goes through a lot in the story and, as a result of that, she finds herself being isolated from the outside world. She tries to stay indoors and as far away from the outside world as much as possible. Ruth, Leah’s daughter-in-law and her She and her daughter in law, Ruth, don’t get along. Ruth tries everything …show more content…
Along with Leah isolating herself from the outdoors, she starts isolating herself from her family. Leah always thinks the worst of situations ???. Jack wanted her to move in with him and his family. He didn’t want her living alone. Other than the fact that Lead hated Ruth, Leah thought that the only reason they wanted her to move in was because of her pension. ** dropped quote! You do not understand incorporating quotes- see me**“Why do I stay with them?’ She asked herself the question for the thousandth time and for the thousandth time replied with the automatic answer,’Because they need my pension.” (111) Leah questions why Jack and Ruth want her to move in with them. She repeats, thousands of times how her pension is the only reason as to why they would want that. Leah continuously lies to her kids about little, irrelevant things. In doing so, it creates space between them; the truth being the space. Leah tells them that they will go places, do things, get things when, in reality, she knows none of it is true. “She’d even lie to the children, ‘The winter’s almost over now, things are always easier in the summer. Maybe this year we can all go on a little vacation, to a farm maybe, wouldn’t it be nice to go to a farm?” (111) Leah knows that they won’t actually go to the farm on family vacation during the summer. She tells her kids repetitive lies to make her sound better to them. They didn’t have much money, they almost lost their house, so she would tell them things to make it seem like they were well off. When Leah’s husband dies she becomes isolated. She changes and doesn’t recognize herself
Kate Morrison is a well educated, independent woman with a decent job, supportive boyfriend and family. Externally, Kate has a life that some people might envy of but, internally, she isn’t as stable as she seems. Crow Lake, a novel written by Mary Lawson, leads the readers to the protagonist, Kate Morrison and the struggles in her life. Kate loses her parents in her early age and for this reason she lives with her siblings with some help from her neighbours and other family members. Despite the absence of her parents, Kate and her siblings seem to grow well. Although there is some crisis in the family, they seem to be inevitable consequences of not having an adult in the family. However, Kate spends an innumerable amount of time accepting and letting go of the past and eventually it causes another crisis in her present life. She continuously has some kind of depression, and she does not realize that her depression is coming from herself, not from anything or anybody else. Crow Lake contains a great message that shows refusing to face the past affects your future negatively. We see ...
It is never told exactly what has caused Lisa Shilling to slip into this state of depression, which helps to make the atmosphere of the novel very mysterious. Just when it appears that Lisa is getting better, another episode occurs. The story is disturbing, being set around Lisa’s school and home. With other characters in the story, such as Lisa’s parents, causing conflicts with Lisa receiving proper treatment, the story is given a disturbing yet realistic feel.
However, instead of allowing the corruption and grief of losing a significant figure in her life completely consume her, Leah embraces a new culture and turns to another male figure, her husband Anatole, for guidance. With new surrounding influences, Leah encounters various forms of separation, whether it be from her birthplace, father, or husband, and accepts all the drawbacks and loses that come along with the isolation. At the same time, Leah also challenges herself to overcome the loss and succumb to the loneliness that could potentially bring her closer to a new aspect of life never explored before. Through it all, Leah turns her experiences with exile into bittersweet memories sprinkled across the time span of her life for each rift allowed her to obtain a sense of self identity during periods of time free of human contact or, in Leah’s case,
Growing up, Ruth had a rough childhood growing up in a very strict jewish household. Her family was poor, her mother was physically handicapped, her father was verbally and physically abusive, and she faced prejudice and discrimination from her neighbors and classmates because she
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.
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
Paloma Josse is a twelve-year-old girl who lives a lavish life. However, she has developed a plan to end her own life by June 16th, the day she turns thirteen. After close observations to the world and people around her, she comes to the conclusion that people seem to never become who they always wanted to be. She assumes that this is inevitable in the life of every adult’s life. She convinces herself that in order to avoid this fate she must end her own life. In hopes of finding beauty, she commits herself to journaling about moments that she finds to be meaningful to leave behind when she is gone.
Adversity affects the lives of many individuals. Through facing adversity people tend to show their true selves. In the novel “Speak” by Laurie Halse-Anderson, the main character Melinda, faces a few different types of adversity. One form of adversity that she faces is that she was sexually assaulted. Another type of adversity that Melinda goes through in this novel is that she loses all her friends and starts to lose her family as well. Throughout my life, I have faced many different types of adversity, one major thing that I have dealt with in my life is depression. Those who face adversity in their life can choose if they want to face it or to ignore it, and the outcome will prove what they chose to do.
In conclusion, the fact that Ruth lived through so much trauma from her father most likely brought out the strength in her heart, and caused her to realize that she wants a good life for her children instead of the trauamtic life that she lived through in her own childhood. Ruth’s overall identity could be explicity explained as a mother who is strong, has a lot of faith in God, and a woman with a lot of value and love for all of her twelve children. Ruth Mcbride’s strength and confidence helps herself through the hardships of her childhood, her relationships with Dennis and Hunter, as well as James Mcbride and the rest of her children. She developed the identity of a strong-willed mother, lover, and a woman of God.
Sylvia Plath’s novel, “The Bell Jar”, tells a story of a young woman’s descent into mental illness. Esther Greenwood, a 19 year old girl, struggles to find meaning within her life as she sees a distorted version of the world. In Plath’s novel, different elements and themes of symbolism are used to explain the mental downfall of the book’s main character and narrator such as cutting her off from others, forcing her to delve further into her own mind, and casting an air of negativity around her. Plath uses images of rotting fig trees and veils of mist to convey the desperation she feels when confronted with issues of her future. Esther Greenwood feels that she is trapped under a bell jar, which distorts her view of the world around her.
I looked around at everyone in the room and saw the sorrow in their eyes. My eyes first fell on my grandmother, usually the beacon of strength in our family. My grandmother looked as if she had been crying for a very long period of time. Her face looked more wrinkled than before underneath the wild, white hair atop her head. The face of this once youthful person now looked like a grape that had been dried in the sun to become a raisin. Her hair looked like it had not been brushed since the previous day as if created from high wispy clouds on a bright sunny day.
Isolation often creates dismay resulting in an individual facing internal conflicts with themselves. Ann experiences and endures unbearable loneliness to the point where she needs to do almost anything to
...manic depressive state which leads her to her suicide. She no longer has a will to repress any untold secrets from the past or perhaps the past. Since she has strayed far from her Christian beliefs, she has given in to the evil that has worked to overcome her. She believes she is finally achieving her freedom when she is only confining herself to one single choice, death. In taking her own life, she for the last time falls into an extremely low mood, disregards anyone but herself, and disobeys the church.
The first fantasy of Ruth's was to go and buy an upgraded house with her family. The barriers in Ruth's way are the welcoming committee telling them to leave and giving her a hard time with moving in. In the movie she struggles with having a tiny house with her whole family in it. She had lots of hope for her family to be in better condition and her imagination life became reality.
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