Christina's Topic and Foci

Topic: Parent and child relationships/child dealing with the death of a parent

Foci 1: How a child copes with the loss of their parent. Although "The Love of my Life" and "Heroin/e" are both by Cheryl Strayed and her dealing with the loss of her mother, each story has a different way that she grieved her mothers death. Similarly "Coming Home Again" by Chang-Rae Lee is about the death of his mother, but this story is more about how he dealt with his mother dying and what he did during this time.

Foci 2: Symbols used in the stories, life/death. I have noticed similarities in all of the stories I have read and I think it would interesting to dive into what these symbols could mean. For example, I was thinking today about why both authors would include the child cooking for their mother. One possibility I thought of was maybe it was showing the role reversal and how now the children were caring for their parents. There were many more symbols in these stories that stood out to me as well.

Foci 3: Comparing how the authors tells the story of losing a parent. The stories I have read so far have been braided pieces and have switched from the story of their parent dying to old memories with their parent or what they did after their parent died. Both the stories by Cheryl Strayed and the story by Chang-Rae Lee are very descriptive about the smallest things they remember and have very distinctive styles.

Comments

  1. AnonymousJanuary 23, 2018 at 5:43 PM

    1. What are the other symbols that stood out to you in Foci 2? (does this count as one- I feel like it might not so I'll do 4 questions just in case.)
    2. How old are the children in the stories? Maybe compare coping across ages or genders?
    3. Are all the parent child relationships positive? How would their coping mechanisms change if it wasn't a positive relationship?
    4. Why is it that the authors describe the smallest things with the most vivid detail?

    I think your topic of dealing with death is very interesting especially in the context of such an important relationship such as parent and child. It might be interesting to look at the more unconventional ways that the characters deal with loss if there is any. Or use maybe use psychology to analyze characters reactions to their losses. Something else that might be interesting would be the concept of memory in regards to the death of parent.

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