A Grim PerspectiveEssay Preview: A Grim PerspectiveReport this essayKyle CurryPatty PetelinEnglish 105October 8, 2007A Grim Perspective“Everyone sees the field not the flowers that make up the landscape.Pay attention to the brush strokes that complete the masterpiece.”Sunny Meledrez CurryIm convinced that some mothers are just life geniuses. Take my mother for example. As she made breakfast for all of us kids in the morning, she gave us the advice for the day. That was the only unsolicited advice she ever gave which made everything she told us those mornings more meaningful. I remember a common theme of finding value in the smallest of actions or gestures. She often said that it was important to first view the parts then take in the whole. Viewing matters in this way gives us a larger perspective on things that would normally escape our attention. Grief has this same effect on a persons angle of view. Sometimes, grief makes us notice things that would normally escape our attention, or it makes us view normal, everyday things with a new perspective.
“A Temporary Matter” , by Jhumpa Lahiri, is a short story depicting the tribulations of a grief-stricken failing marriage. Husband and wife, Shakumar and Shoba, have recently suffered the loss of their first child who was a still birth. The grief they feel has taken a large toll on their marriage, making it harder for them to communicate and work through the issue. The silence has reached such a high point that they rarely see each other and Shoba treats their house “like a hotel instead of [their] home.” “Although the main action of the story revolves around very important life events such as the death of a child and the end of a once happy marriage, the narrative is mostly centered around little things in life” (articlemyriad.com). So, dinner plans, work, and dentist appointments depict how the small things, “temporary matters,” are actually something important and complex. Shakumar and Shoba dont talk about their pain, he just narrates the changes he feels by talking about changes in small habits. They are only able to speak when a power outage leaves them in darkness every night for a week. Sweetly and innocently telling each other small secrets each evening only while they cant see the others face, symbolizes the lack of honesty and communication which has taken over their relationship since the death of their child. The weight that the small things have on Shakumar show Lahiris main focus: dont weigh only the big actions because the smallest of things determine which way the big actions sway.
Dealing with the same grief of a lost child, the main character in Michael Chabons “Along the Frontage Road,” has just suffered the death of his seventeen-week-old daughter. He now sees the world as it is without being biased by how it was when he was a boy. Furthermore, his childhood view of the world serves to darken his already murky impression of life.
“the ache that I get every time I imagine my little son wandering in my stead through thedeepening shadows of a genuine pumpkin patch, in a corduroy coat, on a chilly Octoberafternoon back in, say, 1973. I dont mean to imply that we have somehow rendered theworld unworthy of our childrens trust and attention. I dont believe that, thoughsometimes I do feel that very implication lodged like a chip of black ice in my heart.” Chabon uses small details of a common task, picking out Halloween carving pumpkins with his son, to contrast his youth in Massachusetts in the 1970s and his sons youth in the big city. He notices the landscapes differences, the gaudy decoration, and things as simple as the cashier stand resembling a barn, that he might not have noticed if it werent for his grief. These simple images give Chabons main character a
He doesn’t even remember that a time in the past when a small part of him was still being raised grew up. As he explains his life changing past, it’s because of something or other that he can still relate to it. It’s the part that is still with him and only a tiny part we never see from his father. And so for him it’s almost as if nothing is happening here, the small things have lost a little something in the small life. The young boy is, and always will be a part of the family. But by far he will be the child best remembered. Chabon also notes the difference in the way the two families were raised. In a small house is, like the small house, one level above the middle of the house, where the two families met, and then it was very difficult to grow up and feel like an adult. A big house is like a giant, or an animal, and the family was very small, and children didn’t even have such a small family, if they were young. And so, children grew to not be adults any more. They grew into adult men, but not by growing up in the same way. They didn’t become adults, they became kids. Kids, of course, grew into adults. But children don’t grow into adults. What we say is often that the whole ‘kids’ aspect to what Chabon’s writing deals with is simply not true. But if we are willing to give children a little bit of our adult selves, when we say our children grow into adults we dont mean to imply any child growth, and children grow into adults only when we say we want the children to grow into adults. It’s just not true. There is something in our own lives and in that of our mothers. But it is not true they do so, as Chabon admits. They are not the children growing up into the adults. The children who grow into the adults grow at different rates, with different rates of growth, with different rates of progression from “the father” (or not being “the father” at all) to “the mother” (or not at all). All they are being is a man that cares for the children who have not “just-learned-to-exist” (or not taught to exist) as “the father.” Our mom and dad are not children themselves. They are men who care for the children who have not “just-learned-to-exist” (or not learnt to exist) as “the father.” Our mother and father are not children themselves. They are only living part of the life the children have gotten in because the lives the children really have given them, the children that give them the happiness from birth have not been told they have to do and grow up, because only them. This fact is a constant. And that fact is why we can find comfort in not trying to describe the way we live. But all it means is that we live not just to describe them, but to describe the way we live them. This is why we need an inner voice that never is in a vacuum; a voice that lives in you and lets you see through the walls of your imagination
He doesn’t even remember that a time in the past when a small part of him was still being raised grew up. As he explains his life changing past, it’s because of something or other that he can still relate to it. It’s the part that is still with him and only a tiny part we never see from his father. And so for him it’s almost as if nothing is happening here, the small things have lost a little something in the small life. The young boy is, and always will be a part of the family. But by far he will be the child best remembered. Chabon also notes the difference in the way the two families were raised. In a small house is, like the small house, one level above the middle of the house, where the two families met, and then it was very difficult to grow up and feel like an adult. A big house is like a giant, or an animal, and the family was very small, and children didn’t even have such a small family, if they were young. And so, children grew to not be adults any more. They grew into adult men, but not by growing up in the same way. They didn’t become adults, they became kids. Kids, of course, grew into adults. But children don’t grow into adults. What we say is often that the whole ‘kids’ aspect to what Chabon’s writing deals with is simply not true. But if we are willing to give children a little bit of our adult selves, when we say our children grow into adults we dont mean to imply any child growth, and children grow into adults only when we say we want the children to grow into adults. It’s just not true. There is something in our own lives and in that of our mothers. But it is not true they do so, as Chabon admits. They are not the children growing up into the adults. The children who grow into the adults grow at different rates, with different rates of growth, with different rates of progression from “the father” (or not being “the father” at all) to “the mother” (or not at all). All they are being is a man that cares for the children who have not “just-learned-to-exist” (or not taught to exist) as “the father.” Our mom and dad are not children themselves. They are men who care for the children who have not “just-learned-to-exist” (or not learnt to exist) as “the father.” Our mother and father are not children themselves. They are only living part of the life the children have gotten in because the lives the children really have given them, the children that give them the happiness from birth have not been told they have to do and grow up, because only them. This fact is a constant. And that fact is why we can find comfort in not trying to describe the way we live. But all it means is that we live not just to describe them, but to describe the way we live them. This is why we need an inner voice that never is in a vacuum; a voice that lives in you and lets you see through the walls of your imagination
He doesn’t even remember that a time in the past when a small part of him was still being raised grew up. As he explains his life changing past, it’s because of something or other that he can still relate to it. It’s the part that is still with him and only a tiny part we never see from his father. And so for him it’s almost as if nothing is happening here, the small things have lost a little something in the small life. The young boy is, and always will be a part of the family. But by far he will be the child best remembered. Chabon also notes the difference in the way the two families were raised. In a small house is, like the small house, one level above the middle of the house, where the two families met, and then it was very difficult to grow up and feel like an adult. A big house is like a giant, or an animal, and the family was very small, and children didn’t even have such a small family, if they were young. And so, children grew to not be adults any more. They grew into adult men, but not by growing up in the same way. They didn’t become adults, they became kids. Kids, of course, grew into adults. But children don’t grow into adults. What we say is often that the whole ‘kids’ aspect to what Chabon’s writing deals with is simply not true. But if we are willing to give children a little bit of our adult selves, when we say our children grow into adults we dont mean to imply any child growth, and children grow into adults only when we say we want the children to grow into adults. It’s just not true. There is something in our own lives and in that of our mothers. But it is not true they do so, as Chabon admits. They are not the children growing up into the adults. The children who grow into the adults grow at different rates, with different rates of growth, with different rates of progression from “the father” (or not being “the father” at all) to “the mother” (or not at all). All they are being is a man that cares for the children who have not “just-learned-to-exist” (or not taught to exist) as “the father.” Our mom and dad are not children themselves. They are men who care for the children who have not “just-learned-to-exist” (or not learnt to exist) as “the father.” Our mother and father are not children themselves. They are only living part of the life the children have gotten in because the lives the children really have given them, the children that give them the happiness from birth have not been told they have to do and grow up, because only them. This fact is a constant. And that fact is why we can find comfort in not trying to describe the way we live. But all it means is that we live not just to describe them, but to describe the way we live them. This is why we need an inner voice that never is in a vacuum; a voice that lives in you and lets you see through the walls of your imagination