Hello friends, thank you for returning to my blog! Today I
will discuss my thoughts of the second section of the novel, Sarah’s Key.
“Her parents would be proud of her. That’s what she wanted
them to be. Proud because she had escaped from that camp. Proud because she was
going to Paris, to save her brother. Proud, because she wasn’t afraid” (Rosnay
98)
Wanting our parents to be proud rather than disappointed is
definitely something we all want, if it’s through athletics, academics or
independence, we all search for our parents to say, “I’m proud of you”. The
fact that I have a job and I am able to make my own money is probably something
that makes my parents proud. I am able to pay for my own clothing, my phone
bill and food when necessary. I am also already saving for university so, I
think that in a way my independence and my ability to start saving and even
that I am thinking about my future is something that should make my parents
proud. Sports and athletics is also something that can make my parent proud,
but it can also disappoint. I play soccer competitively and I can say that
there is sometimes a pressure to perform in front of my parents. It’s always nice
to hear my parents say “that’s my son” when I play well, but it’s also hard to
see the disappointment through their facial expressions after I play poor. For these reasons I can see why Sarah is
hoping that her parents are proud of her and is clear to me that Sarah is not
only escaping to save her brother, but she is also doing it to make her parents
proud. All we really want is our parents to say “I’m proud of you”.
What we all want to hear. (Via Giphy.com)
Sarah demonstrates a true love towards her younger brother Michel,
but in this section Sarah shows signs of both hope and doubt towards whether
her brother is alive or not. “All of a sudden, every ounce of hope she still harbored
within her ran out. ..... Michel was dead. Dead in the cupboard. She knew it” (Rosnay
118). In this quotation, Sarah realises that her brother is actually dead and there
is no way he could have survived in a lock cupboard. Although, Sarah also demonstrates signs of
hope and even later believes that her brother might be alive. “They saved me.
They saved my life. Maybe somebody like them saved Michel, saved Papa and
Maman. Maybe there is still hope” (Rosnay 132). Sarah creates a belief that her
brother may still be alive to cope with the thought of his death. In a way she
creates an expectation which most likely won’t come true. In my own personal
life, I too have created unrealistic expectations, which actually didn’t
happen. For example, sometimes at school if I forgot to do homework or I have a
presentation or a test that day, I create a thought in my head that maybe the
teacher is sick or away. I create an expectation which I know won’t come true,
but in a way I do to create hope and cope with my stress over the assessment.
When Sarah finds out that her brother is dead I think that fact she had hope,
hurt her even more when she found out. “She sank to her knees again, and she screamed
at the top of her lungs, she screamed for her mother, for her father, screamed
for Michel” (Rosnay 160).
Sarah's reaction (Via Giphy.com)
Thank you for ready my post, and be sure to stay tuned for
my next blog post on the finale of Sarah’s
Key.
Hi Stephen,thank you for posting this I really enjoyed reading your blog post and you memes were very accurate! I really agree with you when you say that all of us want to make our parents almost all the time. I personally feel a lot of pressure to make my parents proud because since I was very young, my parents had very high expectations of me. Since they knew I was capable of getting high grades and winning academic awards at school, they always expected me to live up to or exceed their expectations. I always wanted to make my parents proud, so I stressed myself out all the time because I wanted to live up to their expectations so they can say that they are proud of me. In the novel I can also really relate to Sarah when she has such a high hope for something that she knows is unrealistic (her brother actually being alive) I remember I always used to have the most unrealistic expectations when forgetting to do an assignment or not studying enough as I should for a test. I would always tell myself, "maybe the teacher wont collect the assignment" or "maybe the test will be really easy" and "maybe the teacher will be an easy marker for this test". I remember saying this kind of stuff to myself to make my self feel better about the difficult situations that I put my self into. I still set unrealistic expectations for myself in difficult situations like that, the only reason I do it is because it allows me not become stressed out about the situation which usually happens and I get awful anxiety attacks from it. I can really relate to the points you made, well done Stephen, I look forward to reading about what you think of the ending of the novel. Thanks for posting!
ReplyDeleteHi Stephen, cool blog!
ReplyDeleteI understand where you’re coming from when you say that we want our parents to be proud of us. If I am being honest, I do want my parents to be proud of my accomplishments, but at the same time it is not my biggest priority. I am lucky to have supportive parents, so they have never really frowned upon my life in general, including applying to university for the liberal arts, which most people have frowned upon. With that in mind, when I do something it is not necessarily for my parents approval. When I am playing sports, or doing schoolwork or when I got my job, I was/am doing it all for me. I feel like I am harsher on myself than my parents are on me so really, I am looking for my approval. For example, when I am not playing my best at an Ultimate tournament, I am more frustrated and disappointed at myself than my parents are. I am not saying that my parents approval is the last thing on my list, but it certainly isn’t the first.
I totally agree with you when you talk about unrealistic expectations. When Sarah was thinking about Michel, she knew deep down that he was dead, but she did not want to believe that. So she made up unrealistic scenarios to cope. I sometimes do that too, but not in the same way. When I get bored and start daydreaming in class or before I go to sleep, I always make weird stories in my head that are unrealistic. I make conversations in my head between me and other people, and make random scenarios that could probably happen the next day, or imagine meeting someone new. It’s not the same for me because I just do it for fun, but Sarah was genuinely hoping for her brother to be alive.
Hey Stephen,
ReplyDeleteIt is nice to see the work you have put into your blogs, I am glad to be one of many that have the chance of reading it. I would like to agree with the connection you made with your parents. Pleasing my parents is one of the best things I can do, and when I do it, it is the best feeling anybody could imagine. It is interesting that you think this way because in todays society pleasing parents isn’t on the top of everyone’s priority anymore and I am glad to see that there are people like you still out there.
I also understand the feeling when you disappoint them. It is perhaps one of the most difficult things that I can go through. I remember a few years ago my mom told me I could go out with my friends one evening, but the only restriction was that I would have to come home by ten o’clock. Being a typical teenager, I made it home by eleven thirty, and to be honest I did not feel cool, happy, or even independent. I felt like I disobeyed my mom, her rules, and her trust. My mother then gave me the worst punishment imaginable, the silent treatment. I felt bad for many days. I felt bad because I lost the trust of the most important person in my life. When you mentioned that Sarah disappointed her parents by letting her brother down. I immediately understood her pain.
We all must work hard to please our parents, after all they have provided for us. We are blessed to be where we are in life with all credit to them. The best feeling anyone can have is knowing that their parents are proud of them.