My Sister's Keeper Essay

The book “My Sister’s Keeper” by Jodi Picoult is a story about a young girl Anna Fitzgerald who at age thirteen has undergone countless surgeries and transfusions for her older sister Kate who has a rare and aggressive form of leukemia. Anna decides to take matters into her own hands and gets a lawyer, Campbell Alexander, to sue her parents for emancipation and this decision threatens to destroy her family for good. There were a couple of themes to the story but the biggest one was the bond of sisterhood. Anna’s decisions affect every character including her older sister Kate, and her parents, Sara and Brian Fitzgerald through the theme and plot of the story. The most affected character by Anna’s actions are Kate. Since birth, Anna has donated stem cells, bone marrow and platelets to keep Kate alive, causing a lot of pain and recovery for Anna. Anna’s role in Kate’s survival has been a blessing and a curse for her, as it has made her Kate’s savior. When the time comes when Kate is experiencing kidney failure and Anna is a match, she refuses to give her sister her kidney. Anna has no legal …show more content…
Kate and Anna’s bond that they have with each other is much stronger than most normal siblings because of Anna’s role as a donor for Kate. The reason why Anna was born was to help keep Kate alive. “See, unlike the rest of the free world, I didn’t get here by accident. And if your parents have you for a reason then that reason better exist. Because once it’s gone, so are you.” That reason was to be Kate’s donor. That means that Anna was born to form that bond with Kate because they can’t live without each other. Anna, for better and worse, feels so strongly connected to Kate that she compares their relationship to that of Siamese twins at one point. Kate, though she behaves as any big sister would, also shows immense gratitude to Anna for going through what she goes through for her