The Memory Keeper's Daughter Analysis

David's mother got worse and she began to think of new ways to torture David. David was one of a few brothers, but only he was targeted. The other brothers pretended he wasn't even there. There was only one person in the family that still loved David was his father. David’s father would fight for David and would protect him from the mother. But, he would always lose. Whenever David's father went to work, David would get beat. Dave became the scapegoat for his mother's mistakes. David became a slave of the house and did all the chores. If he did not finish his chores with an unreasonable time, he did not receive dinner. David was starved for three days at a time. Once, David got stabbed by his mother for not completing her dishes. Whenever David came back from school his mother forced him to throw up to see if he got any food at school. This happened every

In the book “The Memory Keeper's Daughter” by Kim Edwards a doctor and his wife have twins and the first child is a healthy boy but then the second child that comes out is a little girl with the signs of down syndrome and he asks his Nurse to take the baby away to an institution while he tells his wife the baby girl died. Through out the entire book it is a struggle for Dr. Henry's wife Norah to have closure with the fact that her baby girl is said to be dead and she never saw her, held her, or cared for her. Kim Edwards shows through the whole book that we are only human, the themes that life is beyond our control and through the connection between suffering and joy.

Since David’s mother’ death, he now lived with his loving grandmother, Margret Limpert. David seemed to ignore her and show disrespect to her. In the beginning of the book, his grandmother took him to an Easter egg hunt. He was not happy about going. When David was looking for easter eggs, he saw a girl that he thought was beautiful. He asked if she was dead, and she did not respond. He then starting talking about himself to the girl, and then he ran off. The girl that he mistook as being dead, was a thirteen year-old girl who likes to break all rules, and her name was Primrose Dufee.

After a visit from his mother at his foster home, David decides to take back all of the things he told Mrs. Gold about his mother. He lied and told her that all the stories about his mother beating him and mistreating him were untrue and that he really was a bad child. As much as Mrs. Gold tried to reassure him David continued to lie and yell at Mrs. Gold. "David, you have to understand that in a person’s life there are a few precious moments in which decisions, choices that you make now, will effect you for the rest of your life" (57). This explains the ethical dilemma that David was put in. Although he wanted to free himself from the pain of his mother he also did not want to hurt his family. He felt ashamed for letting everyone know "the family secret”. David shows extreme selflessness when making his decision to lie to his social worker. According to moral of the story, selflessness is defined as concern for the interests of others. Extreme selflessness is when a person is solely concerned for the

David learns a great lesson about morals from all the events that occur. Marie is found dead a few days after Frank goes in to see her. Frank claims she died of pneumonia. David’s next-door neighbour, Daisy McAuley, goes to their house to comfort Gail. Daisy treats David maternally and wants him to leave the “scene of the crime.” So she tells him to go over to her house and have a piece of pie. While he’s there, David encounters the deputy sheriff, Len McAuley. Len is drunk and reveals the

Firstly, Aunt Harriet has a big influence on David, because David feels sorrow due to the situation that his aunt is going through. Aunt Harriet is talking to David’s father, "This is the third time. They'll take my baby away again like they took the others. I can't stand that - not again. Henry will turn me out, I think. He'll find another wife, who can give him proper children. There'll be nothing- nothing in the world for me - nothing. I came here hoping against hope for sympathy and help. Emily is the only person who can help me. I - I can see now how foolish I was to hope at all..." (Wyndham 71, 72) David thinks about his mother, and how she reacts to this situation, which had a negative impact on David. Later on David could not stop thinking about Aunt Harriet after the incidence, “For several nights I dreamed of Aunt Harriet lying

At the age of 5 years old, not only did he began to take showers with his father, but when they went to the beach club, his mother bathed him in the shower in the presence of other naked women. By the age of 6 years old, David noticed the power men had over women, “when a male entered the women’s side of the bathhouse, all the women shrieked”. (Gale Biography). At the age of 7 and 8 years old, he experienced a series of head accidents. First, he was hit by a car and suffered head injuries. A few months later he ran into a wall and again suffered head injuries. Then he was hit in the head with a pipe and received a four inch gash in the forehead. Believing his natural mother died while giving birth to him was the source of intense guilt, and anger inside David. His size and appearance did not help matters. He was larger than most kids his age and not particularly attractive, which he was teased by his classmates. His parents were not social people, and David followed in that path, developing a reputation for being a loner. At the age of 14 years old David became very depressed after his adoptive mother Pearl, died from breast cancer. He viewed his mother’s death as a monster plot designed to destroy him. (Gale Biography). He began to fail in school and began an infatuation with petty larceny and pyromania. He sets fires,

Young David Hayden grows in morals due to the shocking events of the summer of 1948. Consequently, David learns a great lesson about morals from all the episodes that occur. Marie is found dead a few days after Frank goes in to see her. Frank claims she died of pneumonia. David’s next door neighbor, Daisy McAuley, goes to their house to comfort Gail. Daisy treats David maternally and wants him to leave the “scene of the crime.'; So she tell him to go over to her house and have a piece of pie. While he’s there, David encounters the deputy sheriff, Len McAuley. Len is drunk and reveals the fact that he thought he saw Frank walking into David’s house a little while before Marie was found dead. David discloses this and the fact that, he too, saw Frank. David confesses to his parents, “ …While I was sitting there I saw someone cutting across our backyard. There’s a knothole you can see out of. I was pretty sure it was Uncle Frank. Then I got out and watched him go down the tracks. He was going toward town…'; (97). After receiving the shock of knowing his uncle is a fiend, David experiences a growth in morality. He chooses to tell his parents what he knows, or at least part of what he knows, about Uncle Frank. This shows that he is developing in the area of honesty. Before, David would have kept all this to himself, rather than face his parents with knowledge he knows will displease them.

     Emotionally, she never referred to David as her son. She always knew Dave as ‘the boy’ or ‘It’. As his father would try to intervene to help him out, he would be caught by the madness of his wife in calling him, ‘the boy’ and ‘It’. As much as his father tried to comfort Dave, he did not have the will to stand up against his wife.

David questions himself about many of the choices that he made in Nic’s life. Some of them good and some of them I had a difficult time understanding. For instance was it really a good idea for his mother to move so far away from her child and then force him to travel back and forth between his home with his father to his mother’s house in Los Angeles, where he basically living his life on his on.. As a young child was this too much for Nic to handle let alone truly understand. Was it a good idea for David to take Nic to see Nirvana which was a rock band where the lead singer was addicted to heroin and later overdosed and died, whose death really affected Nic. Or was it a good thing for David to share with Nic at such a young age about his abuse of drugs and alcohol when he was in high school and college. Throughout this book David second guesses himself a lot. I feel that one of the most controversy things in the book was when they were visiting family and David and Nic went out for a walk and he was talking to his son about his drug use and Nic asks him if he wants to smoke some weed and David does. Now some of David’s actions can be considered confusing because maybe Nic was thinking that you did drugs when you were in high school and college and look you turned out alright or the fact that he thinks it is ok to do drugs because my dad actually smoked some weed with me.

Yet everything had changed. David had changed,” (79) Chloe and I both felt that this quote shows how David is pulling back from nor to help him prevent this deep secret that he is hiding form her. Also I believe that Nora (the wife) is starting to realize that something is taking David’s (the father) attention away from not only Nora, but his son as well. Chloe and I talked about how Caroline relocating her and the baby away from all the chaos from back home was best suited for

In the book, The Memory Keeper’s Daughter by Kim Edwards, the characters are constantly faced with a metaphorical wall, something which prohibits them from experiencing lasting or true happiness. This is the primary challenge, or conflict throughout the course of the story, which is handled in contrasting manners between the two main characters. It began when Dr. David Henry and his wife, Norah, gave birth to twins. One a healthy boy, Paul, and the other a girl with down syndrome, Phoebe. David gave Phoebe to his nurse, Caroline Gill, and ordered her to take the baby away to spare his wife and son the despair of having Phoebe around.

As Davis starts to tell about his life as a young boy in America, he lets us know about his mother dying far too young, and him being raised by his father and aunt. David's dad is stereotype of a man and their emotions. He and his son never have a close relationship. Even when David gets hurt in an accident, his father doesn't want him to cry. He wants him to be a man, a manly man and

David Lurie does know the difference between right and wrong but chooses to go down the wrong path inevitably. His morals are questionable, at times it seems to be completely lost but when it comes to his daughter they seem to be in order. David is a difficult character to analyse - he is the epitome of someone with a mixed view of his own identity and, ultimately, disgrace.

1. What is the title of the text and what is the text about? The title of this incredible tale is "Her Memory" of Dwight M. Wiley. From a beautiful recitation where you are not thinking to get any suspense, comes out a story full of possibilities and unforeseen.