Narrative Sequence

Narrative Sequence: Option 1

 

 

     

            The novel, Let The Northern Lights Erase Your Name, pays close attention to a woman, Clarissa, and the life she leads, the life she finds out she knows very little about. The life she has been living, one she thought she knew so well, comes to halt when her fiancé tells her that it is not what it seems. Her mother abandoning her fourteen years ago, and who she thinks is her real father’s recent passing, has changed this woman, but maybe not for the better. Engaged, and later we find out, pregnant; she goes to search for her mother. While on this search, across the world, changes Clarissa even more. From the beginning of the novel, we are introduced to Clarissa’s mindset. She acts upon impulse, and very quickly, and usually not good decisions as well. In this paper, I will be analyzing frame of mind.

            Clarissa has grown up, a girl to a woman, without a mother for many of those years. Her mother disappeared, and abandoned their family about fourteen years earlier (Vida, 41). We learn that she left with nothing, no clothes were taken, nothing. This shows that Clarissa’s mother, who we later learn names is Olivia, left upon impulse. When Clarissa’s father dies, she leaves her fiancé, Pankaj, unexpectedly to go to Lapland, to find her mother (Vida, 1). Clarissa’s mindset echoes that of her mothers, and just leaves on her journey to learn about her life, “At seven, I opened the door to my room and stared at Pankaj. I would leave him, I decided” (Vida, 16). This shows Clarissa’s impulsive personality, there is not a reason for her to have decided to leave him. At that moment, she felt like she wanted to leave him, and that is what she is going to do.

            Leaving Pankaj was the first sign of Clarissa’s personality; it is really only just the beginning of her decisions. While on her journey, she meets a man named Kari. Kari is a much younger boy, but she still decides to have drinks with him (Vida, 34). As one thing led to another, Clarissa, and engaged woman, finds herself with Kari, doing something she shouldn’t be. But in her luck, Kari cant handle his alcohol and finds himself face down on the floor of the bathroom (67). The fact that Clarissa engages herself in these situations shows her personality is unstable. She is an engaged woman, who isn’t holding true to her commitment to her fiancé. “A part of me was relieved that what had started had ended” (36). This quote shows that Clarissa does things without thinking. She gets herself into situations, luckily enough she got out of it before it was taken too far, but by the way she says it, it almost seems as if she would have regretted it. She leads a life of uncertainty and confusion, but is that a real excuse for her decisions?

            Clarissa and a young man, Henrik, whom she meets while traveling, create a close relationship. They travel to the ice hotel together, in search of her mother (Vida, 176). Their relationship is something that could very well be something that she did not think through. At first Clarissa did not like Henrik, but the way she talks about him, and his blonde hair, makes it seem as if there is something there between them, something Clarissa has not completely thought through. This is the second time she has become close to a man that of which is not her future husband. She has trouble making responsible, adult decisions. The difference between Henrik and Kari, is that Henrik actually helps her in the long run, he leads her to her long lost mother.

            As the novel goes on, her decisions become more unthoughtful. After her long journey, Clarissa finally meets her mother. While you would think a fourteen-year separation would allow a warm meeting, but it is not even that. It is awkward and tense and very uncomfortable. Although the way her mother acts, almost is the same as Clarissa’s short answers and attitude with Pankaj, her fiancé, that of which she still does not know if she is going to return to him.

            “If I returned to Pankaj now, I would be the daughter of a madman. I would be the child of rape, motherless, raised by a quiet man…I could not live with this kind of condescension” (Vida, 223-224). Clarissa’s thoughts are absolutely absurd. She is taking things, and blowing them out of proportion. It is strange she is even thinking about not returning to her fiancé. She pities her life, much like mother, “ you have no idea what I’ve been through” (Vida, 211). Clarissa and her mother alike are both sorry people, they are very pitiful.  They want everyone around them to feel bad for them, as if no one knows what the other has been through. But with this knowledge, or lack there of what each has been through, you would think Clarissa would have learned her lesson.

            Clarissa finds herself making a very mindless decision at the end of the novel, but she says so herself. “I didn’t know that during the fourth month of my pregnancy I would take a tram up to the top of the Victoria Peak…” (Vida, 225). She leaves her fiancé. Without telling him, without notice. She just never returns. This action echoes her mothers almost exactly. Here Clarissa finds an Australian man, a man who she will marry, “He would know nothing about my past—only that my father was named Richard and that my mother had died when I was fourteen” (225). This is such an important quote to the book. It is so important because everything that Clarissa has gone through, everything she has been searching for and the things she lost in the search, is exactly what she is doing to her own daughter. She is creating a vicious cycle of confusion. After growing up, thinking she knew everything about her life, and one day having everything come crashing down, and then in the following weeks only learn more and more of your mothers darkest secrets and your own, one would think she wouldn’t want her own daughter to go through that. She has lived a life, exactly like her mothers.

Clarissa has not learned her lesson through her own life, her life where all she wanted to know was her past, a past that was a mystery to her. “And when I would hear people say that you cant start over, that you cannot escape the past, I would think you can. You must.” (Vida, 225).

 

February 15, 2009

I finished the book a few classes ago, but kept my mouth shut in class so I wouldn’t ruin it for everyone else. The end of the book was very surprising to me, but I was also really frustrated with everything that was happening. It is great that Clarissa finally found her mother, but I was expecting a happy meeting, not a tense and awkward one. I wondered if my reaction to them meeting was like Clarissa’s own reaction. If I had not seen my mother, who left me, for years and years, I would expect it to be a little tense, but you would think its your own daughter, it would be exciting. Her mother seems like such a nasty woman, she jus has nothing nice to say at all, it was really frustrating to read it. It had to have been for her as well. I did like Anna Kristine though. She seems more like a mother to Clarissa than her own. She cares for her, nurtures her, and lets her into her home and allows her to stay there. Anna Kristine’s family almost becomes her own family.

At the end of the novel, when Clarissa tells her mother that Richard, one of her husbands died a few weeks ago, her immediate response was shocking. She acted like she didn’t even care, let alone know him. Later in that chapter, I was very very shocked when Clarissa found her mother crying. I believe it was over Richard, but it doesn’t say. When she tells Clarissa, “you don’t know what I have been through”, I was really mad because its like she doesn’t know what you have been through because you abandoned her, how is she supposed to know? Olivia seems like a woman that wants everyone to pity her, and to sink into her sappy life. But this pitiful life she leads, is what she has created for herself. She chose to leave, and to never return, to contact her family. She almost deserves it all.

The end of the novel, when Clarissa is talking about writing Pankaj, and not returning to him in New York, was not really a shock to me. I knew she was not going to go back to him. But what is shocking is how she finds an Australian man, raises their child, what we learn to know is a daughter, and they would live in an apartment overlooking a bay. And that they would tell her of her real father, who they would visit in New York City. It is amazing that Clarissa is doing what happened to herself, to her own daughter. It is a vicious cycle. Her daughter is going to go through EXACTLY what she went through, knowing nothing about her life, her real father, her real family. It is almost a let down to know that she is allowing this happen after everything she has been through. Clearly Clarissa has learned nothing from life. She is once again, echoing her mothers footsteps.

Overall, this is my favorite book I have ever read. I cant wait to give it to my mom to read. I feel as if this paper will be easy for me to write because I loved the book so much. As of right now, my narrative sequence paper is going to focus on Clarissa and her mindset. I would like to analyze her mind, and research how she acts so suddenly and on impulse, just like her mother. I know that I can get a lot of quotes and examples, so hopefully it will work out and be a good paper!