The short story called “Insignificant Gestures”, is written by Jo Cannon and it`s about a doctor that looks back at his time as a district health officer in Africa and he ponders over the choices he made and his time there. The narrator remains unnamed through the story. He used to be a district health officer in Africa at the age of 28, and ten years later when reflects back on his time he has retrained as a psychiatrist. He emphasizes a lot that he isn´t the person he used to be back in Africa.
“I barely recognize the man I was then. A thin strand of consciousness is all that connects us”
He has changed much since Africa. In Africa he had a strong sense of right and wrong, which also leads to his quick and wrong judgement of the circumstances …show more content…
He mentions that her face is is the one image that makes sense of life; and one can assume the reason he doesn’t draw anymore, is because he doesn`t like to set his mind free because it is most likely her that will cross his mind since she meant so much to him.
“…,or does the involuting mind fasten on a last image: the one that makes sense of a life? If so, mine would be Celia. Her face has been with me every day for ten years”
His time in Africa has affected him a lot. He takes sleeping medicin, and he compares himself to his own patients:
“They use bold capital letters while my writing is small and secretive, but the content is the same”
Because of his error in judgement, when he didn’t discover Celia was sick in time and got a guy wrongfully imprisoned, he has a hard time sleeping and trusting his own judgement because he feels that her dead was on …show more content…
Every day she sought them out, stamped on dozens with her strong bare feet and swept the crushed bodies into the dust outside. The carnage appalled me, but secretly I was touched”
Even when he thinks about her death, he feels bad, because she was such a great part of his life and she is death, and he feels could have prevented it if he had just noticed the signs.
The story takes place in England, but he has flashbacks to his past in Africa. The narrator tells that those two places not are very alike; in the hospitals in England, most people die surrounded by family and a syringe pumping heroin in to their veins, unlike in Africa where he used to smell the sweet nail-varnish odor of starvation and other smells of human suffering. When he describes the hospital in Africa he describes very negatively
“There might be a protracted labour or difficult caesarean in progress and I would scrub up and work in thick surgical gloves that were too big, with blunt instruments and scissors that didn`t meet, in the overwhelming metallic smell of blood and ordure”
But he describes his home very positively and warm, and Celia also brings a serene peace to the house, when he grows accustomed to her presence, with her humming and faint
“I barely recognize the man I was then. A thin strand of consciousness is all that connects us”
He has changed much since Africa. In Africa he had a strong sense of right and wrong, which also leads to his quick and wrong judgement of the circumstances …show more content…
He mentions that her face is is the one image that makes sense of life; and one can assume the reason he doesn’t draw anymore, is because he doesn`t like to set his mind free because it is most likely her that will cross his mind since she meant so much to him.
“…,or does the involuting mind fasten on a last image: the one that makes sense of a life? If so, mine would be Celia. Her face has been with me every day for ten years”
His time in Africa has affected him a lot. He takes sleeping medicin, and he compares himself to his own patients:
“They use bold capital letters while my writing is small and secretive, but the content is the same”
Because of his error in judgement, when he didn’t discover Celia was sick in time and got a guy wrongfully imprisoned, he has a hard time sleeping and trusting his own judgement because he feels that her dead was on …show more content…
Every day she sought them out, stamped on dozens with her strong bare feet and swept the crushed bodies into the dust outside. The carnage appalled me, but secretly I was touched”
Even when he thinks about her death, he feels bad, because she was such a great part of his life and she is death, and he feels could have prevented it if he had just noticed the signs.
The story takes place in England, but he has flashbacks to his past in Africa. The narrator tells that those two places not are very alike; in the hospitals in England, most people die surrounded by family and a syringe pumping heroin in to their veins, unlike in Africa where he used to smell the sweet nail-varnish odor of starvation and other smells of human suffering. When he describes the hospital in Africa he describes very negatively
“There might be a protracted labour or difficult caesarean in progress and I would scrub up and work in thick surgical gloves that were too big, with blunt instruments and scissors that didn`t meet, in the overwhelming metallic smell of blood and ordure”
But he describes his home very positively and warm, and Celia also brings a serene peace to the house, when he grows accustomed to her presence, with her humming and faint