Genre
Autobiographical
Setting and Context
Modern era
Narrator and Point of View
Rachel Naomi Remen is the first-person narrator.
Tone and Mood
Calming, motivational, serene, appreciative, and empowering
Protagonist and Antagonist
Cancer patients and terminally ill individuals are the protagonists. Terminal illnesses such as cancer are the antagonists.
Major Conflict
Handling maladies is the main conflict that Remen's patients face.
Climax
Climaxes are attained when patients recognize and acknowledge that they are blessed despite being indisposed.
Foreshadowing
N/A
Understatement
N/A
Allusions
Remen appeals to religious concepts such as blessings and God. Additionally, Remen alludes to literary works such as “Tuesdays with Morrie” by Mitch Albom.
Imagery
Remen cites the cancer patients’ struggles with chemotherapy to underscore the significance of acknowledging the blessing of being healthy.
Paradox
Blessed people experiencing emptiness is paradoxical.
Parallelism
An example of parallelism from the text: "THE PEOPLE WHO come to the Commonweal retreats all have a personal relationship with cancer. Some were diagnosed a few weeks ago…Some are living with cancer and others are dying of it." In this excerpt, two sentences commence with the word "some," creating rhythm.
Metonymy and Synecdoche
“Grannie” denotes grandmother. A “feelie heart” represents a human heart.
Personification
Remen’s friends’ departed grandmother’s scent personifies the grandmother: “As she wept, she had experienced a light touch on the top of her head, so gentle that she was not completely sure that she had felt it. But the faint smell of Chantilly, her grandmother’s perfume, was unmistakable.”
