Anna Frith the protagonist of the novel is viewed as heroic as she is “a woman who has faced more terrors than many warriors.” (p.15) Anna is faced with the death of her husband Sam Frith and her children Tom and Jamie as she has “tended so many bodies, people I loved and people I barely knew” (p.8) This shows the beginning Anna’s strengths, as she deals with the bodies of those killed by the plague and shows her willingness and courage to help others. Anna takes on great responsibility after the death of the Gowdie’s as she preserves their legacy and continues their work with the help of Elinor Mompellion, as she learns about midwifery and helps with the delivery of Mary Daniel with the use of her “mother-hands” (p.123), regardless of her fear as her own mother died in childbirth. She shows great compassion as she welcomes a lodger George Viccars into her home and tends to him when he has fallen ill with plague and cares for Mrs Bradford’s baby as she flees to Oran. Elinor Mompellion is a heroic woman as she gives selflessly to those in need in the village. Despite her troubled and sinful past, Elinor accepts the ‘punishment’ given to her by her husband and demonstrates determination in her service to others.
Undoubtedly, the plague causes the disintegration of families in the town. By structuring her novel as a retrospective narrative that is our protagonist, Anna Frith describes of what had happened in the book, enables the audience to adopt the sense of doom and horrors occurred during the time of the catastrophe. We are exposed to pain and grief that Anna feels when she lost her children whom she ‘loved from the moment she first reached down and touched the crowd’ of her children because of the plague, which results in her ‘(fighting) the sexton when he came to take Jamie’s body away’. Brooks clearly demonstrates and explores that the crisis such this plague can destroy
For example in “Destroying Avalon” Avalon had to face the death of her best friend Marshall who took his own life because of being bullied for so many years and not letting anyone to support him through his tough times. “Marshall is dead” was repeated in the book to emphasize the feeling of grief Avalon faced. In “The Colour Purple” death and loss is shown when both Celie’s children are taken away from her at birth and is given the impression that they where killed. Bullying occurs the day you are born by society determining colours, interest and behaviours that suit the type of gender you are. However bullying doesn’t really show it’s self until we go to school, this style of bullying can be verbal, physical or electronic.
Roberts’s relationship with Rowena is one that he holds dearly. Robert acts as her guardian and sees her as the one pure thing in his life while the rest of his family sees her as an imperfection. With the loss of Rowena’s life, Robert blames himself and becomes saddened with disbelief and sorrow. Along with the death of his sister, comes his mother’s urges to kill the last remaining memory of Rowena, her rabbits. After Rowena’s rabbits are killed by a hired hand and Robert is left beaten up, his mother makes an
Idgie experiences a terrible heartbreak during her young developmental stage. She, along with Ruth witness Buddy’s tragic death. This will forever change Idgie, as she becomes even more rebellious and revolutionary. A example of her mischievous ways was when she can road past the church during a sermon and compared the preacher to a snake. The next stage that greatly influences Idgie’s life is when Ruth is asked to come and stay at Idgie’s home by her mother.
For as long as he lived Plath was under the control of her father, “black shoe / In which I have lived like a foot”, and in generally a strict family, “Barely daring to breath or Achoo”. This is where the speaker shows her hatred towards her father which is also evident in the second stanza where she says “Daddy, I have had to kill you.” This shows how she wanted out of her life, but “[he] died before [she] had time”, referring to his death. Even though Plath admires her father and looks up to him, referring to him as “a bad full of God”, she is still frightened of him and refers to him as a “ghastly statue”, but with flaws, “gray toe”. In addition, Plath compares her relationship with her father with the relationship between the Nazis and the Jews in the Second World War. “Chuffing me off like a Jew / … to Dachau, Auschwitz, Belsen” describes her difficult and harsh life and the obstacles she had to face while living with her father.
Through the labour of Mary Daniels, Anna proves to herself and to others, that she is capable of a lot more “than [she] thinks”. The birth also awakens Anna Frith’s eyes, as many of her close friends and family have died in the recent weeks, but the birth lets Anna and Elinor “celebrate in the season of
Addy was still weak from the efforts of her labour, and still sore and bleeding, but she knew she had to leave and she had to leave today" (Lansens 271). Then, when Addy loses Chick, she handles the situation in a better way: "She would not pass through the big oak doors though. Instead she climbed the fire escape stairs, stepping around Mr. Baldwin's winter wood and kindling, intent on keeping her memories at bay" (Lansens 472). Addy is able to overcome the feeling of hurt fast after the death of her second child because she already faces a similar dilemma with her first child. She leaves a whole country to conquer the feeling of loss of her first child whereas she simply decides to ignore the passage her family used to take together in her building after her second child dies.
As Mary’s brother Laurie ran way from home after the clash with their father Calvin Pye, their mother got sick. Since Calvin was very irritated with his children, life was somewhat lonely for Mary which eventually forced her to get close to Matt. An excerpt from novel as narrated by Kat can exemplify how solitude contributed in fabricating the bond between Kate and Matt: “Mrs Pye was in a really serious state that summer, and that worry about her, coming on top of everything else, was more than Marie could bear alone. So she turned for comfort to matt. If she’d had more friends, or if her mother had had family living near, or if Calvin hadn’t alienated the whole community … then maybe Marie would not have needed to turn so hard, so appealingly to Matt.
Jamie and Tom. When Anna lost both her sons she was distraught. She wasn’t sure what to do or how to act. With Anna being like this she turns to drugs ‘poppies’ to give her some pain relief and escape from the mourning. Anna quotes "I thought that she could teach me much about how to manage alone as a woman in the world."