The Memory Keeper's Daughter Literary Analysis

In the novel The Memory Keeper’s Daughter by Kim Edwards Caroline Gills feel alienating, and this brings her to enriching herself by bring a baby into her life. This relates to the work as a whole because Caroline didn't care if the baby wasn’t hers and didn’t care that the baby had down syndrome. Caroline’s feeling of distance enriched her, thus relating to novel as a whole. Since Caroline was a child she was very lonely and isolated “Distantly, silverware clattered voices hummed. Above her, footsteps moved and echo. She half dreamed of her mother, preparing a holiday meal while her father worked in the woodshop. Her childhood had been solitary, sometimes very lonely, but still she had these memories: a special Quilt held close, a rug with rose beneath her feet, the weave of voice that belonged to her alone”(24-25). This show how she was reminded of home and sees how lonely and distant she was. Caroline was also very isolated and show little to no emotion and this again led back to her childhood “That’s her mother would have said shaking her head, telling her not to play Sarah Bernhardt. Caroline hadn’t known for years who Sarah Bernhardt was, but she well enough her mother’s meaning: any excess of emotion was a bad thing, disruptive to the calm order of their days. So …show more content…
After all, the child that rode beside her was, in the eyes of the world, already dead. And she Caroline Gill, was vanishing from the face of the earth, a process that left her feeling light, than lighter, as if the car itself had begun to float high over the quiet fields of southern Ohio”(69). This shows Caroline's excitement and happiness she felt living town and going away with the baby, thus showing enrichment because now she has some value to her