Lost in Translation - Essay Example

LOST IN TRANSLATION In the excerpt provided, Hoffman describes her journey from Europe to North America, the influx of emotions and the kind of experience it was. She puts into perspective what she gained, what she lost, her regrets and her way forward from there. She felt traumatized at the plight of leaving behind her place of childhood and was over-whelmed with an influx of deep emotions as she stood on the deck of her boat. As claimed in the text “ ….I feel that my life is ending…and I want to break out, run back, run toward similar excitement, the waving hands, the exclamations.

We cant be leaving all this behind” She felt that a very crucial chapter of her life and of her own existence is being taken away from her, is slipping from her hands and she is in no mood to let it slip. No matter how traumatic her experience was in Cracrow, she yet holds the streets of her childhood, her friends and all her memories very dear to her. As put in the expert regarding her feelings on emigration ..” It’s a notion of such crushing, definitive finality that to me it might as well mean the end of the world.

“ She felt nostalgia engulfing as if the last moments of the best of her life went flashing past by her as the Polish national anthem was played before the ship left. That must have been a very engaging moment for her. She not only had to counter the feeling of leaving behind a very important part of her life but had to suffice it with the feeling of sadness and longiness. She is overwhelmed at the idea of leaving behind a part of life that had been so dear to her, that had been her identity, the place of her friends, of the fun and frolic she was a part of.

“………..its a feeling whose shades and degree I am destined to know but at this moment it comes upon me life a visitation from a whole new geography of emotions, an annunciation of how much absence can hurt…” In a gist, she was supremely emotional about that gem of a childhood she had lived in Cracow and understandably so. It is only human to get attached to your place of birth, to where you grow up. To emigrate from one land to another that is to uproot completely. It is that feeling of loosing your identity and going to an unknown place, with unknown surroundings and without any feeling of owning somethingInitially she though Canada was another Sahara and she felt her dreams of being a pianist in near future crushing.

Even the stories of Canada that she gone through, she could not relate to them. It is the feeling of belongingness to Cracow that Hoffard had all her life, even when she grew up that could never be supplemented even in Canada. She had adjusted in Canada but she had not been able to let go off her past, of her childhood place which to her had been her place of paradise and she had been searching for that paradise ever since. All this makes sense because no matter where we go and what we become, we cant let go of what touches our hearts.

It is impossible to deprive one of memories of things and places dear to us, which we truly loved which were not imposed upon us because of circumstances and surroundings. Sometimes that love and longingness only deepens with time and no amount of money, luxury and crowd can replace those feelings innate us. Even today as Hoffard lies down on her bed, she slides back into her past and is put in the last few lines of the excerpt, tries to recall of what was a crucial part of her, of her identity , of her being and she has been hunting for it ever since.

She cant let go of her past even though she has gotten into the flow of her present. She has come to terms with her present. There are moments she lives in that past even in Cracrow…As put in the end …”Cracow which to me is both my home and my universe” Hoffard’s experience is very relatable. I am also an Asian and my parents felt the need to move to States when I was 17 years old. When I was leaving at the airport, I felt I was leaving my soul, my essence, my identity. It was never a good feeling because even though I was told that I was going for a better life, brighter future, I was leaving behind what was ME in all this.

7 years down the line that feeling still engulfs me. It still captures me, and it still is a major part of me. Sometimes you get lost in life yearning for the past no matter how good the present is. I live in a posch locality in California today , I have everything I could ask for but I don’t have my type of social circle here, I don’t have my family, I don’t have my friends I grew up with. I yearn for them and I long for them. Materialism can never replaced by emotions no matter what. Any amount of materialism will leave one with a hollow feeling that you would not want to visit at any cost.

It is this kind of materialism and hollow feeling that my existence in this country engulfs me with. It will always be with me and I will never be able to let go off where I truly belonged. Here I live with this feeling that this maybe a good materialistic life but it is not land, these are not my people and I can never belong here. I am living here not because I want to but because I have no other option. This is a life that had been thrusted upon me not chosen by me.