The short story of Lusus Naturae is about a young girl who has been struck by a life-altering disease. Lusus was only seven-years-old when she became ill with the measles and shortly after her life turned upside down. This young lady was appeared to be strong, beautiful, and wanted by others until she had become diseased. Lusus was a very loyal girl who always put others above her own needs or wants. Lusus was described to have, “yellow eyes, pink teeth, red finger nails, and long dark hair that was sprouting on her chest and arms” (263). This description shows how Lusus was fighting many different physical and mental difficulties. She must attempt to see herself as the beautiful young lady who she …show more content…
She didn 't feel scared or in denial, she dressed in her burial dress, and white veil that befits a virgin. Her final thoughts were “Perhaps in Heaven I 'll look like an angel. Or perhaps the angels will look like me. What a surprise that will be, for everyone else” (266)! Her thoughts were shocking, yet can they be true? Maybe she has lived her life being told that she was a freak until she reached a breaking point of actually believing it. Her world could be a messed up place where she is the only sane, normal human being there. When growing up everyone else could 've been the freaks, but in order to make themselves feel normal they had to pick on the poor diseased girl who was the most sane out of them all. She never gave up on herself, even though everyone else didn 't try to know Lusus Naturae(freak of nature), the strongest, most caring, human “monster” to ever walk the earth. Lusus was a round character who always kept me on my feet. You never truly knew her whereabouts geologically, but she paints the perfect pictures for us to fill in ourselves. She was a strongly built young lady, who is carried by her actions and her speech. The author Margaret Atwood had an enduring concern with humanity 's often-destructive relationship with the natural world. Through this concern, she was able to create a story that incorporated her worries of our inability as a society to care …show more content…
The way her life is described creates a sad feeling to the story which in turn brings along the sad, gloomy, dark feel to the imagine. When Lusus was sent to the graveyard to “die” the setting of how the characters speak and act created a foggy presence to the grave. Everyone is sad and surrounding the body of the so called freak of nature, while in reality she was alive, but all her hopes and dreams were now permanently crushed due to her death. The feelings she must of felt were never ending as if the black storm cloud never left from above her. The pain and endless sorrow of that cloud followed her everywhere she went, with never having an escape. This setting contributed to Lusus’s sorrow and presented itself with the dark cloud, now covering the whole town. It is as if the pain that Lusus felt was now being spread throughout the towns people and over their land. Was it a curse or a test? Everyone seemed to never lose their fear of the little girl when she “passed away”. Maybe it was a curse set by the girl or maybe they were being tested to see if they could accept someone who was a different from the rest. Either way they failed in both scenarios. It wasn’t until the town realized that the girl was still alive to show their never ending