Analytical Essay om "Divorced, Beheaded, Survived"

Uddrag

All children possess an inherent innocence that makes them able to meet life in an unconcerned and playful way. Yet, they haven't become acquainted with the more serious elements in life such as disease and death. Naturally, all parents want to protect their children against the confrontation with death, but how far should they go in their efforts to do so? Robin Black's short story “... Divorced, Beheaded, Survived” (2010) centers around these questions, as it presents a woman, Sarah, who herself lost her childish innocence, when her big brother, Terry, died at a young age. Sarah has now become a parent herself when her son, Mark, experiences a similar situation. Now the question for Sarah is how to react. Should she talk to Mark and present him to the serious aspects of life, or should she try to ignore the question in order to protect her son and let him keep his innocence a little while further?

In the short story we are presented to Sarah, who is a mother of two children, Mark and Coco. When Sarah was 10 years old her big brother, Terry, got sick and died. At this early age, Sarah has never experienced death before, so Terry's decease comes as a great shock to her, “Terry got sick, and then sicker, and then got better for a little bit, but then died in '74, which shocked me when it happened, but now, thirty years later, it seems to have been as inevitable a conclusion as the strike of Molly's axe” (ll. 49-51). Here Sarah refers to a game that the children in the neighborhood play that spring. In turn, they enact the beheading of Anne Boleyn (the second wife of King Henry VIII of England who was accused of treason and beheaded in the Tower of London). The children are fascinated by the character of Anne Boleyn, and they literally fight over who gets to play her role, “... the beheading was just too good not to fight over” (ll. 13-14). The whole scene is shrouded in excitement and thrill, and the children are very careful to enact the drama as detailed and dedicated as possible. As absurd as it may seem, the children find death to be an exciting and exotic part of their games, which is only possible because none of them have ever experienced death in real life. This changes when Terry gets sick and eventually dies. The other kids stop dropping by their house and Sarah finds herself isolated and alone with her thoughts. Sarah experiences how death becomes a taboo, which nobody dares to break down, “in real life, it was all silent hours. Vacant stares” (l. 101).

Now Sarah is a grown-up with two kids on her own, Mark (16) and Coco (12). Even though it has been 30 years, it is obvious that she is still concerned about Terry's death. Because of the traumatizing experiences in her own childhood, Sarah is very concerned about how to protect... Køb adgang for at læse mere Allerede medlem? Log ind