As the reader may or may not be aware, the vignettes that I posted were part of a project assigned to my entire class, though I was one of the few who chose to write fiction. Looking over those vignettes posted by my classmates, I notice a recurring theme: events that were painful, in both the physical and emotional senses. I think I understand the reason for this, actually; the discussion of pain both helps to alleviate it in itself, and allows for commiseration, which also helps. (It also makes for a depressing read in some instances, but let's not go into that.) I take as my first example a vignette by Kathryn Douglas:
"Then my best friend Lex, wasn’t my best friend anymore either. We got into an argument cuz she thought I’d be a good idea to make me jealous of her, but it didn’t turn out too well. They made fun of me, really made me feel like nothing."Losing friends is an experience common to, I would think, all people, though to avoid making a generalization I'll go with "most". It is generally agreed that said experience is not a pleasant one. Rare is the friendship that drifts apart peacefully; it is more common for them to end in screaming fights, or mockery like that mentioned above. I hesitate to use the word "traumatizing", because it is a rather strong term, but it is definite that the end of a friendship is a painful event. It is also one that tends to imprint itself on one's memory, making it easier to weave a story out of, although this may or may not be a positive thing. An event that might be likened to this one, though the similarities may not be obvious at first, is detailed in Ebone Qualls's first vignette. There she discusses the death of her cousin from cancer, due to that part of the family's rejection of standard cancer treatments. It may seem a bit callous to say that losing a friend through taunts is similar to the death of a relative from cancer, but the labels are in fact only surface identification. The resultant pain of the events is actually quite similar, in that it comes from losing someone close to the author of the vignette.
To further demonstrate my point, let us take a look at the more physical side. The following excerpt comes from the blog of Tony Lin.
"I heard a loud snap, and a second later, I felt like I was just shot with a gun [...] The pain was unbearable it felt as if someone was taking a nail and hammering it into my femur. My leg was throbbing and that wasn’t the worst part."This, again, is a very memorable event; pain tends to leave an impression which often leads to very detailed memories of events surrounding it. That is probably another reason for this recurring theme; everyone has experienced some sort of pain at some point in their lives. This last example is not greatly similar to the first two, since it does not really point out a loss, apart from a temporary loss of functionality in the aforementioned limb. However, it deserves mention as a demonstration of the general theme of pain going on here.
Another, similar theme, which I have not gone into such detail on, is fear. There is a relationship between pain and fear, not just because they tend to occur close together. They are both extremely memorable, of course, and serve as good sources of anecdotes. In addition to this, fear, like pain, often becomes less of a problem when it can be shared. It doesn't just go away, of course, but at least it gets a little better.
And thus concludes my shoddy analysis.
Nothin' shoddy about it. ;)
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