Everyone wants to escape from reality from time to time. Whether it's to simply daydream or get lost in a book, but one must always snap back to the real word and keep true to everyday human responsibilities. Although, in the novella Leaving Gilead by Pat Carr, Geneva Birdsong has been living a fantasy her whole life. She has regrets about her marriage and life with her husband Ian Birdsong and chooses to deal with them as if they weren't there. She doesn't enjoy being a mother, and doesn't love her husband, so she neglects the both of those important aspects in her life. She especially neglects her daughter Saranell. Since the day Geneva married Ian, and regret sunk in, she has been unable to accept reality. Geneva has been living in
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Although extremely ill, Geneva continues to entertain and flirt with philandering confederate soldiers while on a journey to Washington where more fine soldiers will be. Geneva gets so incredibly sick that she actually begins to die and eventually does. On her deathbed Geneva says, “...‘I wasn't fair to your father. I shouldn't have married him.’ The voice was more like a scraping against hard wood with a file, and the wound of mouth didn't seem to move. ‘Such a ridiculous-waste of years.” The swollen tongue may have tied to swallow. ‘For us all’” (142 Carr). Geneva is only able to snap out of her fantasy when she is on her last breath because she knew that it wouldn't alter the fantasy she has been living in. Her life was coming to an end, and then, only then did she wake up from her lifelong daydream. She was unable to accept reality until it ceased to exist and her life was no longer. In the memoir Death Be Not Proud by John Gunther, a father reflects on the death of his son who has been diagnosed with a brain tumor. “Johnny was going to pull through, after all, despite everything, and get well! He was going to beat this evil, lawless thing! He'd show the surgeons how a boy with a real will to live could live” (73 Gunther)! Like Geneva, Johnny Gunther did not accept reality. While suffering with a brain tumor he participated in some of the most mind boggling, challenging and intellectual things a human mind could do. Although Johnny’s lack of realization of reality worked in his advantage to better his health, Geneva’s worked against her, leaving her family abandoned while she kept herself in her own
Although extremely ill, Geneva continues to entertain and flirt with philandering confederate soldiers while on a journey to Washington where more fine soldiers will be. Geneva gets so incredibly sick that she actually begins to die and eventually does. On her deathbed Geneva says, “...‘I wasn't fair to your father. I shouldn't have married him.’ The voice was more like a scraping against hard wood with a file, and the wound of mouth didn't seem to move. ‘Such a ridiculous-waste of years.” The swollen tongue may have tied to swallow. ‘For us all’” (142 Carr). Geneva is only able to snap out of her fantasy when she is on her last breath because she knew that it wouldn't alter the fantasy she has been living in. Her life was coming to an end, and then, only then did she wake up from her lifelong daydream. She was unable to accept reality until it ceased to exist and her life was no longer. In the memoir Death Be Not Proud by John Gunther, a father reflects on the death of his son who has been diagnosed with a brain tumor. “Johnny was going to pull through, after all, despite everything, and get well! He was going to beat this evil, lawless thing! He'd show the surgeons how a boy with a real will to live could live” (73 Gunther)! Like Geneva, Johnny Gunther did not accept reality. While suffering with a brain tumor he participated in some of the most mind boggling, challenging and intellectual things a human mind could do. Although Johnny’s lack of realization of reality worked in his advantage to better his health, Geneva’s worked against her, leaving her family abandoned while she kept herself in her own