Saturday Night Mulberries

560 Words3 Pages
Critical Review Saturday Night Mulberries, Dorothy Ferguson This publication was written by Dorothy Ferguson about her early childhood experiences of, death, grief and how it still has an effect on her adult life. Ferguson grew up in the 1940’s on a farm in America. She details the sudden and witnessed death of her beloved pet, Debbie. This has an instant impact on her describing the pain the tears and the hurt. To the death of her father, who had been diagnosed with Cancer, the almost delayed reaction in what society sees as the first sign of grief – tears. Ferguson describes from an early stage in her life the awareness of death on the farm but there appears no association of feeling attached to the farm animals dying. This could be seen from an early age distinguishing the different relationships and differences between deaths and how theses can affect a child into adulthood. Socially this piece still fits today, the untimely death of Debbie, Witnessed, unexpected describing the instant cry of pain remembering it being “awful” An instant knowledge that the death had occurred. To the death of her father, an unwritten knowledge that the death will happen albeit, she describes perfectly the other relatives, older being aware and she being almost whisked away at the sight of her father. Even today it can be seen as hiding death from children. It appears to be unspoken to tell her of the death. Leaving her with an awareness it had happened. Ferguson recalls being involved in the choosing of the coffin and describes seeing her father in the coffin wearing his suit and acknowledges that he looked different. Even then there are no tears emerging no emotion until a peer asks at school sometime later “What is dead?” Ferguson so obviously with the early experiences of death feels different to other children who at the same age have had not had the experiences or
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