My memoir

To the misguided

I can’t find the sense
In causing another pain
Because of your own.

What causes such hate?
Contempt that becomes so vast
That it comes to this?

The experience
Of loss is one without true
Expression in words.

The emotion of
Grief is one without any
Remedy but time.

You cannot ever
Underestimate effects
Your actions will have.

Looking back on it, I can’t remember why it made me so angry that Colleen always left the cap off the toothpaste. It was typical sibling bickering, I suppose. She could get away with all the things that I couldn’t; when you’re the oldest, you’re just supposed to “know better.” Apparently, sometime during my two years before Colleen was born, I attended the lesson on how to put something away so it doesn’t leave a crusty trail of Crest all over the counter. You never know how much you can truly miss someone until your whole body aches to find a minty mess on the bathroom sink.

We were born and raised in typical American suburbia, in a town just south of Denver, Colorado. Columbine was actually quite a pleasant place to grow up. We made snow angels in the winter, chalky hopscotch boards in the summer. Every morning, perky blonde mothers on our block handed sack lunches to their pigtailed children as they skipped out the door to catch the school bus. If had you asked me ten years ago about my top neighborhood concern, my answer probably would have been “the next block party.” Safety was a given. We never had any reason to think something like this could happen.

As a proud member of Columbine High School’s graduating class of 1999, I felt it was my duty to fully embrace my blossoming case of senioritis whenever possible. Every day brought me closer to my impending graduation, and by April I could hardly combat the pressure to spend class time perusing the spring sales in downtown Denver or munching on Mexican food with my best friend Claudia in her new Jeep. On the morning of the 20th, feeling particularly proud of my perfect attendance so far that week, I decided that Tuesday was the perfect day for tacos. At 11:10am, as I ordered my brunch fajita, Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold entered Columbine High with a duffel bag full of weapons. Before the hour was up, they had wounded 24 students and killed another 12, including my sister Colleen.

The first time my mother’s number appeared on my caller ID, I ignored it without a second thought. ‘As far as she knows’, I reasoned, ‘I’m in a very important lecture and simply can’t be bothered.’ After my phone began to rattle for the third time in a minute and a half, I answered in mock irritation, ready to chastise her for tearing me away from Shakespeare and his ingenious use of iambic pentameter. I had barely begun to speak when my mother’s frantic words silenced me immediately.

“Jessica,” she trembled, “you need to come home. Something horrible has happened.” The rest of our conversation is completely blurred in my memory. I vaguely recall wondering whether I was on the verge of screaming or vomiting. The next thing I remember is staring vacantly out the passenger side window of Claudia’s Cherokee as she sped towards my house. In my reflection I could see the glimmer of tears coating my cheeks, although I couldn’t feel their moisture.

Though the immediate effects of a great earthquake are catastrophic, there’s something to be said for the destructive abilities of the aftershock. For months my mother engaged in a pattern of self-accusatory behavior, reliving the events of that ominous morning again and again.

“Colleen hadn’t been feeling well,” she would tell me tearfully. “I knew she was running a fever. Why didn’t I let her stay home? What kind of mother sends her daughter out into the world with a fever?” Right before my eyes, my once composed and capable mother melted into a puddle of regrets and misgivings. She couldn’t even find consolation in my survival. In her eyes, I wasn’t alive due to any effort on her part; I escaped the tragedy at Columbine by cutting class, which displayed her incompetence as a parent in a different, albeit less glaring, manner.

In the fashion of a true alcoholic, my father seized this opportunity to return to his binge-drinking habits, eliminating two years of struggling through AA meetings and ten years of blissful (at least for the rest of us) sobriety. As his drinking increased, so did my mother’s weepy self-criticism, and his response was to match each of her “what ifs” with a shot of whiskey.

“What if she had been running a temperature of 100, instead of just 99?” my mother would ask. “I always kept the girls home when the thermometer hit three digits.” The only sound that came from my father’s end of the couch was the clank of an empty shot glass hitting the coffee table.

The shock of losing my only sibling, my baby sister, was one I never could have prepared for. As I witnessed the collapse of my entire family structure, the sole comfort I longed for was that of Colleen, the one other person in this world who could ever understand how it felt to console our increasingly unreasonable mother or sweep up the glass from a shattered bottle of Jack Daniel’s on the kitchen floor. The idea that no matter what I did or what I sacrificed, I absolutely could not see her was completely suffocating and unbearable. My solitary consolation came from Claudia, my only friend who never tired of my random bouts of tears, or 1 A.M. phone calls pleading for her to pick me up so I could escape yet another example of my parents’ faltering marriage. In September, it was Claudia who helped me pack up and move into my dorm at CU Boulder, although, to my parents’ credit, they had planned ahead in happier years and saved up enough for my in-state college education.

It has been almost eight years since Colleen’s death and still neither one of my parents has quite recovered. I guess I’m not sure you could even say that I have. If nothing else, I'd like to think that I've learned from my experience. Though I can't forgive Fate for stealing not just one, but three of the people I knew and loved, I’ve developed an understanding of appreciation that you cannot obtain until you’ve lost something so great. There's something about loss that colors the things that you still have. In her own way, Colleen colored my life.

WRITING RESPONSE:

Writing this piece that joins imagination with real events was a heavy assignment. I wanted to express something creatively without infringing on the real experience of someone who actually lived through such a tragedy. This is why I chose this event – I felt like I knew enough details about the situation to write about Columbine, but I’ve also closely witnessed the effect that a child’s death can have on a family, although the extent of this family’s collapse was more of a creative extreme I took as a writer. The combination of imagination and reality reminds me of a discussion I had when reading The Things We Carried by Tim O’Brien. Although it is true that he served in the Vietnam War, he claims that the stories in this book are fictional, and so this blurs the lines a lot when you’re reading the book. A more “reliable” form of depicting a historical event could possibly then be in a textbook or something along those lines, because they carry with them the promise of bearing facts. However, I think that personal accounts give you a more genuine view of what went on at a different level, although its legitimacy can possibly be altered by emotion, perspective, etc. The Museo Storico dell Liberazione made me think more seriously about the pain that comes with tragic events and how desperate it can make a person feel, and I tried to reflect that in my piece.

If This is a Man response

The poem at the beginning set the tone of the piece for me. It was somber and powerful, but also uplifting in a way because it reminds you how much you really have. To sum up the poem in one sentence, I would say "Don't take things for granted." I would describe the narrator as strong, determined, realistic, intelligent and scrappy. I think this helps me sympathize with him; he tells the facts as they are without overdramatizing things (as far as I can tell) and that makes the story feel authentic. The moments that stood out the most for me were the paragraphs of description such as what things were prohibited in the barracks, or how they were arranged. These left an impression on me because they gave such a vivid idea of how life was in this memoir and I was impressed by how detailed they were while still feeling like part of a narrative.

My dialogue piece

Night had only just fallen, yet Mary could scarcely hold open her drooping eyes, their lids as heavy as sandbags. Yawning, she peered out the window at Joseph as he corralled the last few stragglers into their pen. The life of a shepherd’s wife was far from luxurious; when Mary wasn’t tending to their humble two-room home, she stayed busy by aiding her husband with his flock or looking after the farm. Each night she collapsed into bed exhausted, and this cool March evening was no different.

Some hours later, Mary was suddenly awoken by a beam of light cascading through their tiny bedroom window.

“No…oh please, no,” she murmured in despair, unable to even lift her weary head. “If a higher power truly existed, it wouldn’t already be morning.” At that moment, a delicate melody filled Mary’s ears, as if a symphony of harps surrounded her bed.
“Hello, O chosen one,” sounded a melodious voice that seemed to come from the ray of light illuminating the entire room. Startled, Mary snapped out of her sluggish fog and shook her sleeping husband.

“Joseph, wake up! Do you hear that? Do you see it?” she whispered, but was answered only with a guttural snore. Her anxious effort to awaken him was interrupted by another melodic utterance.

“Do not be afraid,” boomed the voice as the luminous beam began to fade, revealing a beautiful young man cloaked in radiant gold, his mahogany curls framing a lustrous complexion. “I appear to you with no intention to harm.”

The alarmed young woman sat up slowly, rubbing at her eyes as if removing their filmy coating of sleep would erase this manifestation before her.

“I’ve had some batty dreams,” she muttered, “but this one is by far the silliest.”

To Mary’s dismay, the man responded to her remark with a chuckle.

“Dear child,” he said with a confident smile, “this is no dream. My name is Gabriel and I have been sent here to inform you of your duty to our Lord and to the world…nay, to the future.”

“I beg your pardon?” Mary replied incredulously. “I am no child, and I haven’t the slightest idea of what you speak. You’re here to inform me of my duty? I don’t even know who you are!”

“I am Gabriel,” the man repeated slowly, “and it is my duty to-”

“You speak of duty, sir,” Mary interjected, “but to be perfectly honest, I see no reason whatsoever to abide by your decree. In fact, I’m appalled by your audacity! My home may not be noble, but that gives you no right to enter without invitation.”

Her outer bravado faltering, Mary turned to Joseph, who continued to snore beside her despite the animated conversation that reverberated throughout their undersized bedroom. With a tightening throat, Mary grasped her husband’s shoulder and heartily shook, again to no avail.

“Please, let me explain,” the man sighed. “Your husband will not wake, but you need not be afraid. I am here to announce your role in the future of this world. It is because of your integrity, Mary, as well as your strength. You have been chosen.”

“But…how do you know my name?” Mary stammered. “And what do you mean by ‘chosen’? I’m afraid I don’t understand what you’re saying, nor can I comprehend this entire situation.” She stared at her visitor in apprehensive confusion, awaiting an explanation.

“It is difficult for mortals to comprehend the heavenly realm,” he replied. “This is why I must reveal to you the duty of which I speak, in order to breach the gap between the two spheres.”

“Well then, breach it already,” Mary scoffed. “I await my enlightenment.”

“Very well,” the man began, inhaling deeply. “At the beginning of time, before the conception of man, there existed only one being. This being was our Lord, God, the creator of the world and the one true deity. Although His supremacy has remained absolute throughout time, humans have failed to acknowledge His eminence. It is imperative that His greatness be recognized. This is where your duty becomes crucial; you, Mary, are to carry the son of God. In nine months, you shall receive the greatest gift any mortal could hope for - you shall birth the son of God, our Savior, Jesus Christ.”

“This is what you call a gift?!” the “chosen one” retorted. “What would my husband think of my pregnancy by another man? Why do you wish shame on me and my family? Please, I bid you leave my home and never return again. I want only a peaceful night’s rest and never to think of this indiscretion again.” Pulling herself out of bed, Mary beckoned towards the window, her molten glare smoldering with red-hot palpability.

The man’s once-confident face became contorted in desperation as he dropped to his knees.

“Please, Mary, I beseech you - heed my command! The future of mankind is in your hands. With your assistance, your son will carry out the word of God on Earth, and in turn he shall atone for the sins of all humans. Please believe me. Without your compliance, the fate of humankind is doomed!”

Mary’s face softened and her lips pursed in contemplation.

“Kind sir,” she began softly. “I deeply apologize, but I cannot submit to such a request. How could I? I know nothing of this God whom you speak of so urgently. I fear that it is much too foolish for me to acquiesce with your request.”

Slowly, the man rose to his feet and took a step towards her. As he did so, the faint glow that still shone through the window fell across his shoulders, revealing an ivory pair of wings sprouting from his back. Mary felt her breath escape her and she drew her hand to her chest, clutching at an exquisite burgundy and charcoal garment that had somehow suddenly replaced her meager nightgown.

“Gabriel,” she whispered, unable to muster any louder speech.

The angel returned to his knees at Mary’s feet and motioned towards the window, where the dim glow had returned to its earlier brilliance. Within the radiant beam, Mary glimpsed the innocent faces of two smaller angels and, between them, an illustrious white dove encased in a radiant veneer of light.

“Good Lord,” spoke Mary, her breath regained. “I will gladly accept my duty.” As a glimmering halo appeared above her, the mother of Jesus Christ bowed her head.

I chose the Annunciation piece because during our discussion, someone mentioned that Mary looked as if she were resisting Gabriel’s request, and that gave me an idea for the dialogue. I thought it was challenging to make the dialogue both convincing but also informative enough that it revealed aspects about the character and the situation in a realistic manner. I thought the visual work both added and detracted – it gave me a base to start with, but I was also limited to certain aspects within the painting. One of the most notable differences between Rome and Naples is the quality of pizza!! But other than that, I thought that Naples had a more authentic feel. I don’t think that the city had too much of an effect on how I wrote this piece because it was set in a different time period and not necessarily even in Italy, but if I had been writing a piece more focused on the city itself, I think it would have come out very differently.

Juvenal reading response

Juvenal depicts wealth very critically, speaking of wealthy groups of people as greedy and over-excessive. He does this by mentioning these different groups and scoffing at their indulgent activities, such as in the First Satire, where he writes, “Meanwhile, all by himself, on a couch unshared, their good king will Gobble and guzzle down the choicest products of land and ocean.” Like Twain, Juvenal is mocking this greed, although he does it in a very flat out manner, whereas Twain revealed his opinion through irony, by giving his narrator a personality that places a strong emphasis on monetary things. Similarly, the concept of hypocrisy in regards to wealth is a clear point in both Juvenal and Twain’s works. In the Fifth Satire, Juvenal writes of the wealthy patron’s gluttony, but then also his stinginess in sharing with others, as the artist Trebius is served “One prawn, half an egg – the kind of supper people leave at the tombs of the dead by way of a token.” This reminded me of Twain’s description of Roman churches – decked in marble and expensive décor, but indifferent to the herd of starving beggars outside their door. Juvenal address sedition and free speech in the same pointblank, stinging manner, stating “If you suppose that your tongue is going to earn you a living, Or do you teach declamation? What iron nerve must be needed While your class, by the score, knocks off tyrannical monarchs…What refutation will come from the speech of the opposition? That’s what they all want to know, but no one is willing to pay for.” I didn’t really remember these themes playing a major part in Twain’s piece however, so I wasn’t sure how they compared. The interaction between artists and patrons in Juvenal’s work is similar to Twain’s – he portrays the patrons as rich and uncaring and the artists as nearly begging for scraps, such as in the Fifth Satire: “The height of good luck! What more could you ask for? Trebius has good cause to break off his sleep, to come running, Shoelaces not yet tied.” From the reading, I got the impression that Juvenal finds morality to be the most noble thing of all. He criticizes things like gluttony, hypocrisy, and mistreatment of others, and overall his attacks are all at moral misdeeds such as these. He also expressly states that nobility “lies in more than a name and title,” which furthers my opinion.

First satire: “Hence come sudden deaths, too sudden for old men to make wills. What a good laugh for the town at all of the dinner tables! Hear the disgruntled friends cheer at the funeral service!” I found this excerpt entertaining because it was mocking the gluttony of the rich and using hyperbole in saying that they would simply keel over after such a filling dinner. He also uses irony in his statement that the friends would cheer at the funeral service, the mental image of which I found amusing as well.

Fifth satire: “To the main event, a battle royal, the freedmen Versus the rest of you, with goblets and crockery flying. You stop a jug with your face, pick up a napkin to wipe it.” I thought this was amusing because of the casual nature with which Juvenal describes getting hit in the face with a jug. This use of burlesque is entertaining because it’s so informal sounding, as if getting hit in the face like that was cleanable simply with a napkin.

Seventh satire: “If you are lucky, you hurl the javelin farther than any, Make the greatest orations, and even with laryngitis Sing like an angel.” I thought this was amusing because of the reference to laryngitis – this example of a person so blessed that even with a sickness of the throat can still sing brilliantly is a funny way to make a point. This seems to also be a use of burlesque language due to its contrast between subject matter and style.

Eighth satire: “You can go back a long way, tracing your roster of forebears, Yet in the end, you will find you came from a shameful asylum.” I thought this quote was funny because it reminded me of the Pazzi family we learned about when we discussed the Medici. The Pazzi were very proud of their family lineage, that they could trace their family back to a soldier who climbed the walls of Jerusalem, but in the end they fell, after an audacious attempt to assassinate Lorenzo Medici when he was attending Easter Mass, something I personally find to be crazy. In addition, we recently learned in Italian class that “pazza” means crazy, another connection to this. I thought this quote employed hyperbole – most of the “forebears” wouldn’t actually belong to an asylum, although Juvenal’s use of this word definitely gets his point across.

My satire

Essay on Overcoming Our Personal Hurdles
Mr. Johnson’s class – Period 4
By Courtney Coleman

I’m sure that most of you won’t understand this, but it’s not always easy being drop-dead gorgeous. You have no idea how much responsibility comes with looks like mine. I mean, sometimes I feel like that girl Helen, you know, from the story by that guy Homer (no, not from “The Simpsons”! Don’t worry, I thought that too). But like, look what she had to deal with because of being so beautiful. A war was fought over her! Sometimes I feel like that.

First of all, people look up to me, you know? When I walk down the halls here at Jefferson High, I can tell that all eyes are on me, which means I have a duty to always look my best. Obviously I have loads of natural beauty – other people spend fortunes trying to get blonde locks like mine! But what makes me especially attractive is my stylistic abilities. I am an expert at hair straightening. There’s a technique, you know. And when it comes to fashion, let’s just say that I’m Christopher Columbus and new trends are like America. I’m always discovering something totally fresh that everybody loves. And…well I’m not sure exactly how the Indians fit into that metaphor, but if they were still around, I know they’d all want to wear what I’m wearing too.

As you can see, I have a lot to think about every morning when I wake up. What color looks best on Wednesdays? Should I wear the eyeliner that makes my eyes look smoky or the one that makes them sultry? And don’t even get me started on accessories. So many girls ignore this crucial part of outfit selection and it totally drags down their whole ensemble. Because I’m really interested in helping out the community, I’ve recently drawn up a petition to institute a class on accessorizing. That way, people can choose to take a helpful course instead of like, gym or something (all that class does for me is clog my pores – yuck).

Back to the point, though. My daily personal hurdle is living up to the expectations that have been set for me because of how I look. Now don’t get me wrong, I wouldn’t have it any other way, but sometimes I think that ugly people don’t know how good they’ve got it. They don’t have to worry about whether their baby blue tank top accentuates or detracts from their ocean blue eyes. It’s a little unfair when you think about it. If I make a mistake fashion-wise, it’s a BIG deal, but if they do something like wear navy blue with black (which happens all the time, and no, it doesn’t match!), well, nobody even notices. Some might say that invisibleness is bliss.

I can’t dwell on my hardships, though. I know that even though some days I’d kill to wear a sweatshirt to school, I have to remember my responsibility to my appearance. It’s like what my mom always tells me – “If you’re not looking your best, what else do you have to offer?” I know that sounds mean or whatever, but it’s just her way of reminding me to “emphasize my assets.” I mean, I’m really, really interesting and everyone loves hearing my stories about meeting my mom’s model friends and the Gucci fashion shows I’ve gone to with her. But…it might be nice if every once in awhile people wanted to hear about the funny story I wrote in English class, or the B+ I got on the Algebra final. I studied really hard for that, but my mom’s right – people would rather see my senior pictures on the fridge, not a boring old math test.

I’m really lucky to have a mother who is so involved in my life. She would never let me embarrass myself by going out in clashing shades of red, and she’ll spare any expense to make sure I always have a matching Coach handbag. Some moms just let their kids run wild and wear whatever they want, but I was blessed with a mother who cares. Just think – without her, I might be sporting Skechers right now! I guess you could say she’s like a really good trainer who helps me get in shape to get over all the hurdles in my life, like how to say no to brownies, even though they’re my favorite dessert. It’s tough but then she reminds me that I’ll never get a date to prom if I can’t even fit into my evening gown. That’s a life lesson too – I need to stay in good shape if I’m going to meet a successful, handsome husband to support me. After all, I probably won’t go to college or anything, and I’ll need a fallback plan if modeling doesn’t work out for me. Sure I’m gorgeous, but if I don’t work hard enough on my figure and complexion, I won’t get hired, which Mom never lets me forget. See, there’s another way she’s supportive. She helps me keep my priorities straight and plan for my future. What else could you ask for from a mother?

In the end, I know that my personal hurdles aren’t too high to overcome. I wake up every morning ready to look my best and I embrace the fact that I’m the golden standard of style at Jefferson. And whenever I feel like it’s all too much, my mother is there for me, waiting with her arms outstretched, holding a pair of designer jeans in one hand and a tube of CoverGirl Blushberry lip shine in the other. Gloss is a girl’s best friend, you know. My mom told me that.

Writing response:
Why did you choose the character(s) you did for this assignment? What was the most challenging part of writing a satirical piece? Is your character “round” or “flat”? Did you return to Twain’s excerpt while developing your own satirical piece?
When I was trying to come up with characters for my assignment, I thought about things that bug me or that I find humorous, and one of the first things that came to mind was self-centered, egotistical people. I started out my story intending to write about a girl who thought she was perfect in every way, not just in appearance, but I decided that to make a more complex character, I wanted to show her insecurities as well and that’s where the character of the overbearing mother came into play. The most challenging part of writing this piece was trying to make the satire funny and amusing but develop an interesting, multidimensional character at the same time. I think my character is more rounded by the end of the story than she was at the beginning – at first, she appears one-dimensional, only interested in looks and fashion, but as her “essay” goes on, she reveals that other things are important to her, and her mother is revealed as the source of her fascination with beauty and appearance. I wouldn’t say I necessarily returned to Twain’s piece – I loved his work, but my piece had very different subject matter. I did try to draw from some aspects of his writing however, like the first person narrator who is oblivious to his or her own flaws.

Mark Twain response

Italian government: squandering their funds, violating of the church, incompetent
Italian churches: overly decadent, juxtaposition between great riches inside and starving poor outside
Duomo: unnecessary, taking precious resources from the people in Florence, over-praised
Medicis: wasteful, flamboyant, wrapped up in material things, overly confident about their importance
“Masters” aka talented artists of the Renaissance: mindless servants of their patrons, dependent on patrons
Dominican friars: having the façade of being completely pious while simultaneously commandeering the Inquisition and its horrible acts
Civitavecchia: dirty, disgusting, having lazy and ignorant inhabitants, unworthy of even a patron saint
Papal States: having an incompetent bureaucracy, archaic and un-advanced
Romans: slothful, superstitious, ignorant, provincial, poorly dressed, having a corrupt church system, unsophisticated, prejudiced

St. Peter’s: bulky, unattractive, overly huge without being impressive
The Inquisition: hypocritical, barbaric
Ancient Roman entertainment at the Coliseum: barbaric, fruitless, over-hyped
Italian obsession with Michelangelo: excessive, exaggerated, unnecessary
European guides: a necessary evil, unintelligible, not knowledgeable – instead, just reciting facts, praise-seekers

Humorous quotes:

-“And now that my temper is up, I may as well go on and abuse everybody I can think of.”

-“And now- However another beggar approaches. I will go out and destroy him and then come back and write another chapter of vituperation.”
[Vituperation means “verbal abuse or castigation; violent denunciation or condemnation” – it is shocking and humorous that he is describing himself so harshly as well]

-“One of these fat barefooted rascals” – in reference to Dominican friars

-“I suppose it will be sent up and filed away among the criminal archives of Rome, and will always be regarded as a mysterious infernal machine which would have blown up like a mine and scattered the good Pope all around but for a miraculous providential interference.”

-“Butchered to make a Roman holiday sounds well for the first seventeen or eighteen hundred thousand times one sees it in print, but after that it begins to grow tiresome.”

-“In Florence he painted everything, designed everything nearly, and what he did not design he used to sit on a favorite stone and look at, and they showed us the stone.”

Twain uses shocking and blunt language and phrases that the reader wouldn’t expect. It surprises you in its harshness and forces you to consider the truth behind his words, although it might not be to the extent he conveys. He also uses a lot of sarcasm, which mocks his subjects in a more subtle, intelligent fashion rather than outright insulting them (though he does a great deal of that too).

My character

Emily crouched quietly in the shadowy room, gazing around at the empty shelves and dresser drawers around her. Suddenly, the deafening silence overcame her and she fell to her knees, instantly sobbing. Waves of salty tears cascaded down her sun-spotted cheeks as she unleashed an anguished cry that echoed against the bare walls, a further reminder of her solitude. As the last of her sobs subsided, she drew a deep breath and rose to her feet, prepared to face her first day without Kate.

With a click, Emily shut the door to her daughter’s vacant bedroom, hoping that Kate’s closed door would keep her memories at bay. She made her way downstairs where the morning sun streamed through the skylight, casting a ray across Emily’s half unpacked suitcase. Draped across the luggage was her newly purchased “NYU Mom” sweatshirt, its cuffs streaked with mascara from their role as Kleenex on her cross-country plane ride the night before. Leaving Kate at a school three thousand miles away was excruciating for Emily. This past weekend had been such a blur – meeting Kate’s new roommate, a trip to the grocery store to stock her mini-fridge, and then Emily and Cliff hugged their only child goodbye knowing they wouldn’t see her smiling face again until Christmas.

The foyer was lined with family photos and the framed snapshots beckoned to Emily as she passed through on her way outside to the mailbox. Kate with her soccer team after their championship win, the three of them on a weekend trip to Sun Valley, the beaming graduate in her cap and gown - all these memories washed over the lonely mother and at once she became livid. How dare Kate leave her alone? How could she do this to Emily, who had devoted her entire life to her daughter? And out of all the schools that had accepted Kate, why on earth would she pick the furthest away?

‘How ungrateful,’ Emily fumed to herself, storming down the front walk. Peering inside the mailbox, she was all the more distraught to find an envelope addressed to Kate - some brochure from one of the various California schools Kate had turned down in favor of the East Coast. Emily had had enough. In one swift movement, she slammed the mailbox shut and spun around, stomping back up the walk and into the house.

Cliff came home from work to find his wife in a crumpled ball on the kitchen floor. There she sat amid bits of smashed chinaware, clutching a half eaten package of Oreos in one hand while aimlessly flipping through a dog-eared photo album with the other. Hundreds of other family photographs lay strewn about Emily, who glanced up warily when she heard Cliff enter the room. Her expression explained it all to her husband; the mixture of sorrow, fear and remorse spoke more than any of Emily’s words ever could. Cliff extended his hand and pulled Emily to her feet, leading her to the couch before turning to the wreckage in the kitchen.

Emily awoke early the next morning and shuffled into the kitchen to brew Cliff’s daily pot of espresso. As she reached into the pantry for the coffee grounds, her hand grazed against the jar of Jif peanut butter, Kate’s favorite. Emily had used it to make Kate’s sandwiches for years, even back before her daughter decided she was much too grown up to go by Katie. Emily felt a twinge of despair as she recalled little Katie’s pigtails and chocolate stained lips. How wonderful a time that was for a mother, to be so adored by her child. Determined not to repeat the previous day’s actions, Emily turned her attention again to her husband’s coffee, pushing her longing memories to the side, at least for now.

After Cliff had left for the office, Emily decided she must spend today differently. She could dwell on Kate’s absence no longer. Musing over the day of freedom ahead of her, Emily began to list the ways she could spend her time, but she realized that each of them ultimately led to Kate. ‘Why don’t I run errands?’ she thought, but there was no prom dress to be picked up from the cleaners, no mechanical pencils needed for tomorrow’s math final. Grocery shopping was her next option, but without a group of ravenous teenagers around, the cupboards were more than well-stocked. It occurred to Emily that it was time to do something for herself, and herself alone.

Once she had pulled on a pair of sweats and tennis shoes, Emily set out to explore the neighborhood where she had spent the last few years. The three of them had moved into this cozy gated community right after Kate’s last year of junior high; Cliff had just gotten promoted and the new location allowed Kate to attend one of the best private high schools in the state. Emily had hardly gotten to know the place in all the time she had lived there, however. Throughout Kate’s education, Emily encouraged her to participate in a variety of activities and played an active role in her daughter’s life, attending PTA meetings, cheering at the sidelines of every game and assisting in the production of any recital or play that featured Kate. As busy as her daughter was, Emily’s schedule was just as hectic, if not more. As she strolled through the winding roads and cul-de-sacs, it dawned on this overachieving mother that for the past eighteen years, she had almost nothing that she could call her own. In fact, she had only one thing to show for nearly two decades of time and effort: Kate. All Emily had ever wanted was to be a good mother, but with her daughter becoming an adult, it was apparent that there was something more to life. Though only the day before she had been terrified of her loneliness, she now saw that her solitude was liberating. It was at that moment that Emily felt truly alive.

Writing response: I chose this character because I wanted to write in the perspective of someone in a different situation than myself but with certain aspects that I understood or had experienced. I’ve had friends go far away to school and I’ve missed them a lot, so I thought about how that felt and then took it to an extreme in the form of an overbearing mother. Something I thought was challenging was portraying both good and bad qualities while still making her believable. I wanted to show how Emily was very loving but also dependent to an unhealthy extent, which is something that’s tricky to portray. I used both familiar aspects (family, college, etc) and unsettling things, such as Emily breaking the dishes out of anger. I thought that would be the best way to make a believable character who still had some extreme characteristics.

Middlemarch response

Dorothea: naïve, inquisitive, confused, romantic, lonely
Eliot on Dorothea: P195 – “It would be a unique delight to wait and watch for the melodious fragments in which her heart and soul came forth so directly and ingenuously.”
Telling the same idea: Dorothea is a very emotional character. She deals with things with her feelings rather clearly exposed. Though this can be viewed as a flaw, in moments of happiness it is a gift of hers and is very endearing to Ladislaw.

Mr. Casaubon: experienced, knowledgeable, jaded, proper, guarded
Eliot on Casaubon: P185 – “With his taper stuck before him he forgot the absence of windows, and in bitter manuscript remarks on other men’s notions about the solar deities, he had become indifferent to the sunlight.”
Telling the same idea: Mr. Casaubon is a very smart man, but he focuses his intelligence and intuition on his work rather than the life that is taking place around him. Though he is very learned about people and places, he can’t read the events that occur in his life. This is shown in his reaction to Dorothea’s questions about what he thinks of art and architecture; he rattles off facts to her about the pieces, but has no emotion or connection to them.

Will Ladislaw: charming, scholarly, creative, observant, animated
Eliot on Ladislaw: P192 – “But the idea of this dried up pedant, this elaborator of small explanations about as important as the surplus stock of false antiquities kept in a vendor’s back chamber, having first got this adorable young creature to marry him, and then passing his honeymoon away from her, groping after his mouldy futilities (Will was given to hyperbole) – this sudden picture stirred him with a sort of comic disgust…”
Telling the same idea: Will is also emotional and tends to be extreme (“given to hyperbole” indicates a tendency to exaggerate). This sentence is what led me to describe him as animated – he experiences dynamic emotions such as “comic disgust.” He is also romantic like Dorothea, as is shown by the jealousy he feels that Casaubon mistreats his wife (in Ladislaw’s opinion, anyway).

Eliot rejects the concept of fancying up characters in order to conform to some sort of ideal. Instead she seeks a “rare, precious quality of truthfulness” and attempts to portray characters as real people who are identifiable and can be loved even despite their flaws. I think she does practice what she preaches to some extent in Middlemarch; all three main characters do have flaws and are interestingly developed in a way that you can identify with each one. The only qualm I would have with the story is the way that Ladislaw is shown in a mostly positive light. His flaws aren’t developed as well as Dorothea’s or Casaubon, but I think that is only because we read such a short section of the story.