Literary Analysis by Amy Hempel's. In the cemetery where AL Jolson's Buried - Essay Example

The narrator recalls how her only visit to the hospital was to see her best friend, who wore a surgical mask as a result of her condition and she had to do the same. Her visit had taken a quite some time because she was largely procrastinating, as the narrator did not have the courage to see her friend in such a state. From the very beginning the narrator and her friend talk about inconsequential things and then the plot sheds light on all the other fears the friend fears, such as fear of flying and fear of earthquakes; however, the main fear that the narrator is experiencing is largely the fear of losing her best friend.

The story intertwines many complex human feelings such as love, attachment, communication, death and dying, and the process of grieving for the loss of loved ones. It could be deduced that despite being an aviophobe, she flies all the way to a hospital near the California coast; which is also one of the most earthquake prone areas in the United States. Thus, her wish to see her friend during her last moment, is not only about the narrator finally confronting her friend’s imminent death but also facing all the other stimuli in her life that caused her to become increasingly fearful.

(Henderson, 2001) Furthermore, the fact the narrator used to drink Canadian ginger ale and pretend that they were in Canada, is a brilliant allegory used by the author to describe the narrator’s mindset that how she uses her imagination in order to bend reality. The communication between the two friends actually the demonstrate the closeness between the two. The stories they share and the light-hearted humor that brings to the story is clearly an example of how one becomes avoidant at a crucial stage like this.

The stories they share shed light in to the emotional conflict the narrator is experiencing, for instance when the narrator speaks about the first chimp was taught to speak , also lied. This shows that human beings are very similar when it comes to embracing the truth. They would lie not only for some dubious reason but the lies are in fact intended to protect them from the harshness of the truth. Therefore, out of the five stages of grief outlined by Kubler-Ross the origin of denial largely stems from the fact that the individual refuses to be honest with him or herself.

The aforementioned ideas clearly demonstrate that the narrator’s fluency in the language of grief. Ideas like “the smarter knows when to disobey…”is actually another parallel that the author drew in order to underline the narrator’s for her sincerity towards her friend but at the same time, she must abandon in order to hide from the pain of watching her friend die in front of her. There are a number of other metaphors in the story that is not only appropriate to describe the narrator’s ordeal but is true for every human being.

The narrator states: “So I hadn’t dared to look any closer. But now I’m doing it – and hoping that I will live through it” No one has the nerve to see eye to eye with their worst fears but certain circumstances may cause an individual to face his or her fears; even though, it may seem like their fear is so excessive that it might kill them but is obviously not necessarily so. The narrator was afraid beyond her wits, every time the thought occurred to her that her friend may die and she was close to abandoning her but yet somehow circumstances do not allow her.

She believes