Insignificant Gestures Essay

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Insignificant gestures “If I could peel back time, I would do things differently. But you don’t get second chances”- insignificant gestures (ll. 11-12). One wrong decision can haunt you for life – especially those decisions you take at a critical point. Sometimes those decisions are all it takes to change our lives and our personalities. To mention a few people who have to take critical decisions, Soldiers and Doctors who works in the hot spots of the world, like Africa, would be a good example. These emotional consequences can lead to Post Traumatic Stress Syndrome, PTSD. That is the main theme in Jo Cannon’s short story insignificant gestures from 2007 – how one mistake can change a person’s life and personality. The story is told through a series of flashbacks from the narrator’s present time, which means we get an insight of the character’s mind who has suffered severe emotional trauma. Our narrator’s trauma is caused by two errors of judgement, which he made when he was a volunteer doctor 10 years ago in Africa. The narrator has moved back to Britain and he has changed his line of work to psychiatry. He did not leave his traumatic experience in Africa and cannot forgive himself. He is on medication and has giving up his drawing. He is afraid of the place his mind will be when he draws. He also suffers from insomnia and anxiety “Even now, when a passing lights up my wall I jerk awake with hot rivulets of anxiety running through my limps” (ll. 74-75) all this is the consequences Africa has left him – but he has not always been like this. Before Africa, he was a hedonist man who believed that through his work in a less developed country, he would be able to make a difference and save the world. He had a romanticized image of Africa “and I remember evenings spent drawing by oil lamp in my little white washed house, while an African sunset poured itself
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