Creative Writing: Hanna's Mistake

Mrs. Mallard and Mrs. Sommers have a fair share of intemperance. Mrs. Mallard has come to the realization that the death of her husband is not only a tragic occurrence, but also a beneficial cutting of her previously binding marital ties. The crisis of her grief has given her new insight on her life, and Mrs. Mallard understands that her marriage has limited her independence and freedom. Due to this realization she immediately forgets about the accident and starts to think about her freedom: ““Free! Body and soul free!” she kept whispering” (paragraph 14). It is only an hour after Mrs. Mallard has received the bitter news of her husband’s death. Considering that her husband is gone, instead of mourning, she is overwhelmed with the freedom she

“Knowing Ms. Mallard was afflicted with a heart trouble, great care was taken to break it to her as gently as possible the news of her husband’s death.” Her sister and husband’s friend Richard had to be careful when telling Ms. Mallard about her husband’s because it may give her problems with her heart. Ms. Mallard had to lock herself in her room and look out the window to calm down after hearing the news. She even knew that death is inevitable.

The irony of Mrs. Mallard’s response to the news of her husband’s death lies in the fact that her reaction did not constitute what a common reaction to death entails: extreme disbelief, prolonged heartache, and violent hysterics. When her sister Josephine breaks the news to Mrs.

Though she may have come to terms with mortality with a speed and cooperation unseen or rarely acquired by those who live long, she too has had time to feel the same heartbreak and anguish that readers of her story will, and do, no matter how fleeting. The humility and severity of her existence somehow still allows her to comprehend a full spectrum of human experiences, forcing her to grieve, cope, reconcile and understand because as she powerfully inquires, “What else do I have?”

One night, thoroughly past her bedtime, Georgiana crept stealthily downstairs to sneak a bite of pie, even though her mother would never approve. She immediately realized a heavy drape of desolation. The only noise was her heart beating to the rapid rhythm of the twitching fan. Georgiana thought that no one would be awake at one in the morning. She slipped through the doorway into the kitchen. For an instant, her heart stopped. A dreadful sight stood in her way. An innocent and isolated individual lay with his hand grasping for life, but it was already over. Taking a step back, she

Through details, choice of words and especially the style in which this story is written, Callie, the narrator, guides our responses as well as our views of the events and people. From Callie “…remember[ing] exactly”(1) how it all started to finally telling us that she “…want[s] to get better”(150) we grow to understand what caused her sense of hopelessness and how she came to deal with wanting to cut herself.

She stares at herself in the mirror, examining every self inflicted scar from picking scabs. Her skin tone is grey and dull. Her hair has gotten oily and unkempt. She stopped caring about her looks and was not aware of it. There are age spots on her face that seem to have appeared over night. She touches her face and strokes the bags under her eyes with her finger tips. She looks now at what used to be a beautiful smile and cannot believe that her teeth have decayed, they are almost gone. It saddens her and she looks away. She feels ashamed of what she has become. She looks back at the mirror only to be looking into her eyes. With a hoarse voice she utters the words, “How did this happen?”

As she rubbed her eyes in exhaustion she remembered the adventures of the day before. When she got home she passed out from the excitement and strain on her heart. She reached down to check her leg and sighed with relief to find a replacement was already attached. She looked over at her nightstand and noticed her spare glass waiting for her to put them on. As she got out of bed all she could think about was how rude she was to Sam. She walked into the kitchen to see her mother preparing breakfast. She looked around and did not see Sam. She didn’t know why she expected to see her but she was upset that he was not here. Her mom turned a saw her disappointment and said “He seem in quite a rush to leave he left his job to help you.” She was startled by her answer and rushed out the door ignoring the cries from her mother. She hurried Sam’s farm almost throwing up because of the strain on her heart. When she reached the farm she found an old man working the fields. She rushed over and asked, “Where is Sam?” The old man replied, “I fired him because...” She didn’t let him finish She rushed to the road the taste of blood in her mouth from running. She saw a man walking on the road looking forlorn. She called out, “Sam!” The man stopped and turned it was Sam he answered her, “Joy?” She ran into his arms and started to cry. Sam confused hugged her back. She thought to herself about how a horrible incident led to her

As her husband came home, it is no wonder that she had a heart attack. It was stated that she already had heart problems. It is ironic that she begins these plans in her head for a life without her husband, when she in reality is the one who dies and whose life is cut short.

There was a burning sensation going down her cheeks, they wouldn't stop. And no matter how hard she tried to hold it back she just ended up sobbing harder, taking large stuttering breaths every second. She could barely see, the tears clouded her eyes and she felt oh-so weak.

Finally, the reader is introduced to the character around whom the story is centered, the accursed murderess, Mrs. Wright. She is depicted to be a person of great life and vitality in her younger years, yet her life as Mrs. Wright is portrayed as one of grim sameness, maintaining a humorless daily grind, devoid of life as one regards it in a normal social sense. Although it is clear to the reader that Mrs. Wright is indeed the culprit, she is portrayed sympathetically because of that very lack of normalcy in her daily routine. Where she was once a girl of fun and laughter, it is clear that over the years she has been forced into a reclusive shell by a marriage to a man who has been singularly oppressive. It is equally clear that she finally was brought to her personal breaking point, dealing with her situation in a manner that was at once final and yet inconclusive, depending on the outcome of the legal investigation. It is notable that regardless of the outcome, Mrs. Wright had finally realized a state of peace within herself, a state which had been denied her for the duration of her relationship with the deceased.

“It is a shame that her father left her...this happened because her mother failed her job as a wife...she is so young...what was her father thinking?”, my relatives whispered as they sipped their tea. My cousin’s face turned pale like the white blanket of snow falling outside the lodge at the camp in Lake Tahoe. Her expression held so many emotions as if it was a canvas of a painting to be gazed upon. I could see that she felt frustrated and tired of these rude remarks, and all I did was just stand there and caressed the back side of her hands, so I could comfort her. Suddenly, it felt like the air had thickened so much that even a hammer could not slash it into tiny bits. My cousin had not yet known why her father left the house yesterday.

Delomy put down the pencil on her desk and looked at the half-completed sketch of a raven. Delomy rested her chin on her knee as she remembered why she had stopped. It all came back to her in a flood of memories and colors: the warmth in her father’s dark brown eyes, his firm grip, and his death. Delomy tried to turn the thoughts aside, but they just came back, more vividly than before. She remembered the day clearly. Her father’s headaches had been agitating him more than usual, and when he woke up in the middle of the night with a 106o fever Delomy’s mom had taken him to the hospital. In the morning, they had gotten a call from the hospital. Soon, Delomy’s mother hung up, her lips pressed together tightly. ‘Get in the car. Now,’ she had said.

Marcy looked at me one last time before scurrying upstairs to put Pearla to bed. The look on my wife’s face screamed that she had more to say, but she didn’t have the time. All by my lonesome in the kitchen, I leaned against the cold counter top and busied myself with reading the day’s newspaper. Oh, how delightful! According to the newspaper, the new policy that stated that anyone with an incurable disease was to be killed off, was saving the government big bucks. How it delights me to hear that. With the prospect of money on my mind, I crawled upstairs, flopped into bed, and let sleep overtake me. Even in my slumber, I couldn't shake the feeling that something could truly be wrong with my

Swinton begins Raging with Compassion with the story of a child’s sudden death. His neighbor calls, frantic, to say that his 11-year-old dropped dead while walking home. Swinton identifies this as the moment he realized “something was fundamentally wrong with the way I had been conceptualizing and dealing with the problem of evil and the reality of suffering” (10). I, also, had a similar moment of realization, also because of a child’s death. In October 2016, my sister Cate was 3 weeks away from delivering her first child when they discovered that the baby’s heart had stopped beating—Hannah had died. All the clichés and platitudes about how “God needed her home” and “everything happens for a reason” were worthless at best and fundamentally wrong at worst. There were no words for the pain our family felt, and I was grateful that for the most part people did not try to give us words. However, there still was the temptation by some to explain away the tragedy, or defend God in the midst of it.