Themes of Loss in "The Shawl" and "Bone Black" Essay

The death of a loved one can result in a trauma where the painful experience causes a psychological scar. Alice Sebold’s The Lovely Bones explores the different ways in which people process grief when they lose a loved one. When young Susie Salmon is killed on her way home from school, the remaining four members of her family all deal differently with their grief. After Susie’s death, her mother, Abigail Salmon, endures the adversity of losing her daughter, her family collapsing, and accepting the loss of the life she never had the opportunity to live. Abigail uses Freud’s defence mechanisms to repress wounds, fears, her guilty desires, and to resolve conflicts, which results in her alienation and

Many people across the world suffer from alcoholism, a family disease. It is called a family disease because the addiction harms the alcoholic, and everyone who has to live with them. Children consistently suffer when they share a house with an alcoholic. Unfortunately, alcoholism is common and many children find themselves in this situation. The emotional and psychological scars that children can develop in alcoholic homes can be so deep that they can last well into adulthood. Youth who grew up in an alcoholic home can develop similar personality traits and characteristics. Approximately 26.8 million children are exposed to alcoholism in the family and 6.6 million children 18 and younger live in households with at least one alcoholic

“Alcohol addiction stunts the spiritual, emotional and mental growth of a person”~Anonymous. Sherman Alexie’s novel, The Absolutely True Diary of a Part Time Indian, is a book based off the author’s teenage life. The novel is about a poor 14 year old named Junior who faced numerous challenges in his life. Junior has experienced bullying, he was called a traitor for following his dreams, got in a huge fight with his best friend and lost three very important people in his life because of alcohol. Fortunately in the end, Junior got through the pain and lived on but he learned many lessons. One of the lessons Junior learned was that the fall into addiction, in this situation alcohol, leads to a great deal of misery for the individual and those

Many people define their lives by the relationships within their family. They are someone’s daughter, someone’s wife, or someone’s mother or father. The loss of a family member, especially due to death, creates a radical readjustment to people’s day to day lives and how they see and feel about themselves. Sometimes the process of grief can last over several years and how it is mentally processed and dealt with is different for everyone. “Mud” by Geoffrey Forsyth, shows an insightful view of a grieving man who had already lost his father and grandmother and is now just coming to terms with the loss of his wife two years prior. The entire story is written in first person point of view which allows for the reader to fully engage themselves in the grief and strife of the narrator’s life. Geoffrey’s story “Mud” begins in the home of the narrator where he encounters these dead family members and has to decide if he is ready to move on from his grief and say goodbye or stay behind and be consumed by it.

The theme of parental mourning has been a universal one throughout the centuries. In the literature on bereavement, writers repeat certain themes, thoughts, and reflections; they talk of the powerful and often conflicting emotions involved in "the pain of grief and the

Many people today can’t bare life without their fathers. But when your whole family dies except for two of your sisters, that really hurts(Berger). Sometimes people take family for granted our family. They think “Nothing will happen to me and my family”, till something happens to a loved one. Weather it is a disease or cancer, or even death. It can change you life forever.

In normal life, people will sometimes suffer from depression or sickness caused by the loss of a loved one in a romantic or family relationship. This has been a part of life for hundreds of years and it is a way that authors like Edgar Allan Poe, William Faulkner and Horacio Quiroga connect with people all throughout the world. Using exaggerated scenarios, these authors communicate how much of an impact isolation or abandonment can have on a person physically or mentally decaying.

One of the earliest adoption studies was conducted by Goodwin et al., (1973). Results of the study showed that men whose parents were alcoholics had an increased likelihood of alcoholism, even when adopted and raised by non-alcoholic parents from birth. The results provided strong support for a genetic component to alcohol dependence, as treatment for alcohol problems (9% versus 1%) and meeting criteria for alcoholism (18% versus 5%) were all significantly higher in the adopted-away children of parents with alcohol problems/ dependence (Goodwin et al., 1973).

In the novel We Live in Water by Jess Walter, there are many stories about how people live in Spokane, Washington. One interesting aspect the reoccurs in multiple stories is the relationship between father and son. In the short story Anything Helps, Walter introduces the character Bit, a father whose addiction led him to losing his son to the state. He tries to see him but when he does he doesn’t even remember how much time has passed since he’d seen him last. Although Bit tries to be a good father his addictions to alcohol and drugs keeps him from doing so. Although Bit tries to be a good father to his son, Nate, his alcohol and drug problems tends to stop him from doing so.

A staggering 30% of U.S. adults have been or currently are alcoholics, and not all of them have abstained from parenthood. The essay “Under the Influence” by Russel Sanders tells the tale of a young boy who had an alcoholic father, who he could not understand why he was an alcoholic, except for the belief that he was possessed by demons. He didn’t live around any treatment centers that could help his father, for he lived in the backwoods of Ohio. He talked about the constant fear of his father beating him (which he never did), and the constant fear of his father leaving him (which he did for small increments of time). The trauma of having a father who was an alcoholic father stayed with Sanders well into adulthood.

Prominent essayist and novelist, Scott Russell Sanders, in his essay, “Under the Influence” (1989), describes how having an alcoholic parent shapes a person. Sanders’s purpose is to reflect on his bleak youth and its lasting effects on his adulthood. He adopts a resentful tone in order to convey to readers who have no experience of growing up with an alcoholic that alcohol abuse is destructive.

Children are most likely to abuse alcohol if their family tolerates deviance in general or encourages excitement and pleasure seeking (Morris & Maisto, pg. 156) (Finn, Sharkansky, Brandt, & Turcotte, 2000)

Malaika's start in life highlights why children of alcoholics can develop certain patterns of behaviour. Malaika's Father drank and would often leave the house for days, returning to a torrent of verbal abuse from his wife. Malaika would go through her young life seeing her Father be violent and abusive. The protection needed from her Mother wasn't available and like many children in homes where there are alcohol problems, Malaika had to learn to avoid showing any feelings or raising her Father's temper. David Stafford (1992) gives an interesting account of these behaviours developed in his book “Children of Alcoholics” describing how an unpredictable environment can have lasting effects on the child “Unfortunately, in alcoholic households the protection and

It Doesn’t matter if the short story was based on true events or not. When its written about death or losing loved ones, it always reminds you of the people that were so close at once and then gone forever. Many people all over the world deal with their feelings of losing someone. So people cry, and some keep the emotions in and let it burn inside. “A Few Things Wrong with Me” by Lydia Davis and “Harrison Bergeron” by Kurt Vonnegut, Jr. and “Harvey’s Dream” by Stephen King are three examples of how character’s have lost their loved ones in a different way. Some were killed and some were faded away. It also shows unhappy & happy relationships. Two of the three books also have a comparison of people that have problems in their life or forced to be in a problem. These three short stories are written from different authors perspective and have difficult plots but there is one thing that gathers them together, it is the despair that was left in their souls by the loved ones. In these three short stories a person dies or has left someone forever, but all in different aspects. Loosing a person that had a spot in your life isn’t an easy thing to forget but also leaves a mark in your heart forever. Two the three books also have a comparison of people that have problems in life or forced to be in a problem

A study by Wolin and associates determined that children who originated from alcoholic families were not able to function in terms of behavior and emotion as successfully as those who originated from non alcoholic families. In the study, children of alcoholics scored notably lower when researchers looked at their behavioral and emotional