Nora's Suicide In Mrs Glass House

Nora was a solid student with aspirations for herself, she lived outside little bow south Dakota with her father; her mother died in a car accident when she was a child however she often wondered if it had been a suicide. At the age of sixteen she became pregnant and desperately unhappy, she tried to commit suicide once before when she cut her wrists in the shower, however, that time she could not follow through and asked for help. It was the second time that brought Nora to her death, a death that if rewound a few decades began with a chain of events derived from her pregnancy. which was a turning point in her life that like in a u- turn tossed her in the wrong direction. Nora could never forget the traumatic months in the Mrs. Glass house, …show more content…
Glass house as not quite a prison not quite a hospital (28). It was a place full of rules, the girls can’t talk to each other about anything personal, their real names, their home towns or the babies’ fathers “this is not a sorority Mrs. Bibb tells them, let’s keep our socializing to a minimum” (Chaon 29). Which put Nora in an isolated position as opposed to if she had had someone to talk to about the situation she was going through. Yet at the same time she had no privacy “You cannot lock the door to your room in such a place, and her door won 't even stay closed, she doesn 't know why. The air pressure, maybe, the wind, something — she has no way of knowing, but sometimes as she lies in the dark the door will click open like an awakened eye, a shaft of light from the hallway will fall across her face” (28). Also, when Nora admitted herself into the Mrs. Glass house, she did it without really considering the consequences of her actions “she knows this is how it happens, but it’s becoming harder and harder for her to believe” (254). She thinks about how the girls are returned to their normal lives after they have given birth. At the end of her pregnancy when Nora is giving birth, she also changes her mind about giving her son away “I have changed my mind” (354). which is equally indicative of her impulsive decision. Additionally, Nora associates the Mrs. Glass house with death “girls have killed themselves here, she is sure of it. …show more content…
Glass house and the loss of her child played an important role as to deep sadness that Nora felt and that led her to kill herself. the most traumatic event in her life, the event that changed her life forever was her sudden pregnancy at the age of sixteen. All of Nora’s dreams for her life, her junior high school years and her innocent first crush were all suddenly yanked from her hands by an unexpected pregnancy. Nora wanted to be an actress or an artist she was interested in reading and getting good grades, all which she tough were accomplishable. However, after her pregnancy things changed for her she went to live in Chicago and eventually ended up back in south Dakota living with her father until her death; working at a farm packing eggs; a reality that she went as far as giving up her baby, to avoid. “didn’t he get it? What would the future be for her? Married at the age of sixteen, two high school drop outs, stuck forever in little bow South Dakota, everyone’s lives ruined” (254). She didn’t want a baby; she didn’t want to be stuck in that little town forever, but that’s exactly what happened. Also, she could never mentally move on from her Jr high days. “she would go to her room and lay in her bed with her eyes open, listening to records she had since she was in Jr high” (6). Also Jonah mentions, how Nora would talk about living at his grandfather’s house as if they were just visiting although they had been living there since he could