Everyday people die, but what if people vanished into thin air? Would people still have hope? For my quarter four reading I read The Leftovers by Tom Perrotta. The book follows those that are left behind after a rapture like event, where people suddenly vanished with no explanation. The town of Mapleton, from that moment on was never the same. The book follows the Garvey family and their lives after the rapture. Each family member, however, copes and grieves differently. Kevin, the patriarch of the family who becomes the mayor of the town and stresses that returning to a normal life is how the town will get over their losses. However, this does not prove so easily for the rest of his family. His wife, Laurie, leaves to join a religious group called the Guilty Remnant who take a vow not to speak and only wear white. Like his mother, their son, Tom, also leaves to join a movement known as the Healing Hug movement. The only one left is Jill, although still at home she use to be a straight A student and soon starts to fail after spending more time partying rather than studying. Each member of the Garvey family and the members of Mapleton are trying to survive and cope with the losses of their loved ones.
For research I want to research more about the rapture and what it means and why people believe it happened. To understand more about the rapture would allow me to better understand what Perrotta decided and the reaction of some of those within the book. I also want to research more about how people cope with grief and loss, specifically the five stages of grief. Researching more about the grieving process will help to understand how each of the characters react the way they do. Everyone deals with loss differently and to see how each of the characters way of dealing with it relates to that individual but also others and the community as a whole.
There seems to be a lot of religious overtones within the story that I want to better understand. Why would people randomly disappear and what could that possibly mean. In addition the group the Guilty Remnant is some type of religious symbol as a group of people that only wears white, doesn’t speak, and always smokes cigarettes. Overall, Perrotta’s book is one of loss, and while it makes sense that their are religious overtones, but I want to be understand them better and how they contribute to how one copes and grieves.
I think this is a really good idea because you can have some overlapping themes that will meld together nicely. The idea of grief is a very deep concept which will allow you to go a lot of different directions. You might want to figure out the specificity of the type of grief. You could focus on the grief that is faced with total loss which is essentially what the rapture is. I like that you touched base on the subject of religion, I feel that this may also be a strong subject for research. People who have a strong faith in god and their religion may be grieving in a whole other way. You might want to consider narrowing in on one or two characters. As well as narrowing in you should also try and choose two contrasting characters. You can compare and contrast their symptoms and your findings in research. You can also isolate one character to specifically talk about the religious aftermath.If possible it would be really great if you could find actual studies done with grief. Try and correlate these studies with similarities in your characters. Overall I think this is a very good idea and you have a lot to expand on. If anything just try and relate all your themes together for one overall presence.
ReplyDeleteso, as we discussed, you might want to consider narrowing your focus. But see what you find and then decide.
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