Active reading techniques learned in Module 1 promoted my understanding of meaning and writing technique in Roger Angell’s memoir. Rather than reading to get the story, I was reading with a determination to understand and evaluate the memoir for its relevance. Therefore, I read the memoir by actively engaging with the content, highlighting specific areas and using cues in the memoir to understand the message Angell was trying to deliver. Using a critical approach when reading the memoir, I was able to stay focused and retained much of the information after reading. I found the article to be a fascinating one, written in a simple yet detailed manner that leaves one amazed in the end. In the memoir, Angell is trying to show how life continues after the death of the loved ones and how we t
...end to cope with the acceptance of losing a loved one.
'Over the Wall' is a memoir that talks about the death of Angell, Carol and the events that she missed after her death. The most prominent events that Angell mentions include the reelection of Obama, the San Francisco Giants winning the World Series, their granddaughter Clara starting nursery school, and occurrence of hurricane Sandy. Reading the article reveals that Angell wrote it on a personal experience to share his feelings after the passing of his wife. He notes that she was “a little younger,” more than seventeen years younger than him, and that they had “a different plan about dying.” As much as he would have wanted to be the one to die first, he can only accept the situation as it is and keep up “doing O.K.” Th
memoir is more of a reflection of the things that Carol is more missing out. In other words, it demonstrates that he is still in mourning phase but in a good way of accepting the fact that he cannot change the situation.
Angell’s use of anecdotes in the memoir helps in bringing out his point in an indirect way that makes the ready to try and understand what he means. He proposes an interesting and unstartling theory that “it may not be just years that make you old or young but where you stand on the treadmill.” To demonstrate this theory, Angell looks into the lives of William Shawn, Nancy Stableford, Bill Rigney, and Joseph Brodsky who were raised and lived differently, but all died before September 11, 2001. The point that Angell is trying to bring out here is that no one has any control of how long they are doing to live or how they will depart the life we live today. Nonetheless, there will always be something to remember about those who have already departed.
Reading the memoir was such a touching experience, but at the same time amazing how Angell describes the situation. I could relate to his situation and feel his loss of wife through the way he paints the events that take place after. Angell states, “What the dead don’t know piles up, though we don’t notice it at first.” It is clear that when we lose someone that we care about, we are left only with the memories that we made and imagination of how would be if they were still with us. They no longer know how we are
getting along without them, or how we deal with the events that follow after their passing away. Even though their histories, emotions, and attachments once closely wrapped around the dead may fade over time, their names and dates written on the tomb stones are there to be remembered. Angell ends the memoir by saying that the dead lie in the cemetery as if they are waiting to be born. The entire article shows that people pass away leaving no trace behind, but we occasionally remember something about them when we hear their names, see their photos, or visit the cemetery.
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