The Role Of Despair In The Memory Keeper's Daughter '

Kim Edward’s book, The Memory Keeper’s Daughter, is about a man, David Henry, who gave away his daughter, with Down’s syndrome, at birth. David told the mother, Norah Henry, the baby died during labor. While, the twin to the daughter, Paul, survived. The novel is about the good and bad they experience in their lives after giving away the daughter to a nurse. Because of all of the sadness that happened in the book, despair plays a major role in The Memory Keeper’s Daughter.
Thinking her daughter was dead and the relationship between her and David being unstable brought Norah a great deal of pain. With all of these thoughts and actions intertwining together, Norah began to act out in ways that she has never before done. When David missed their anniversary dinner it caused Norah to drink, “I’m drunk, she thought, surprised …show more content…
Paul, who was incredibly close to Bree, was very dismayed when he found out, “He couldn’t imagine the world without her” (Edwards 288). She was always around. She was someone special to Paul, “She would sit for an hour listening to him play” (Edwards 288). Paul could not envision her not being around; it brought sorrow to everyone. Norah and her sister were best friends. Norah felt as if she could not go on if her sister was not there, “I can’t lose you, Bree. I feel like I’ve run in to a wall” (Edwards 297). Norah did not know what she would do without her. Bree helped Norah through many terrible events. Bree gave her advice to get through hard times, “David’s just shutting himself away locking up every feeling. And, you’re still trying to fill the emptiness. To fix things. And, you can’t” (Edwards 43). That is what Bree had said to Norah for advice. Heartache followed many events in this book not only in the supposed death of their child, or the unstableness of Noah’s and David’s relationship, but the almost death of a family