Monday, April 18, 2011
PTSD- Shadrack
My heart broke for Shadrack. He was only twenty-two years old and had been faced with a situation that would haunt his poor life forever. When Morrison described the horrific scene of a man in World War II getting his head blown off and still running around with brain oozing from the side of his neck, I couldn't help but think that anyone at any age would have quite the difficult time witnessing that scene. Yet, when Shadrack was in the hospital the nurses and doctors seemed annoyed with him. He had just finished fighting for their country, but because he was a black man they did not give him any time of day. They did not realize or even understand the effect war had on young men at that time. The medical professionals greatly underestimated the stress the men and women at war were under once they returned back to normalcy. I would diagnose Shadrack with PTSD- post traumatic stress disorder. When he was discharged from the hospital and returned to the Bottom, his neighbors and family should have paid more attention to him and his chartered, "National Suicide Day." Obviously, Shadrack has issues with death. His neighbors only participated in National Suicide Day in the sense that they organized their calendars around the day ensuring that nothing important or dear to their lives was scheduled on the day that Shadrack rang the cowbell announcing that death could not be a surprise on "this day." I would be foolish to expect Shadrack to have a happy life after his desperate attempt to understand why death hovers over his shoulder.
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My heart went out to Shadrack in this part. He worked hard. He followed orders. He was obedient to the "T." How could those working in the hospital not understand how freaked out a body would be waking up in a foreign place after seeing all the atrocities of war?
ReplyDeletePeople often get so wrapped up in their own world. They forget the world around is still revolving around them and they must act accordingly. "They were mightily preoccupied with earthly things-- and each other, wondering even as early as 1920 what Shadrack was all about, what that little girl Sula who grew into a woman in their town was all about, and what they themselves were all about, tucked up there in the Botton." (6)
I call that "busy-body syndrome." They are all concerned about the gossip of other people, but they do not seek to sympathize or reach out once they have learned the information. After seeing Shadrack's freak-out, a nurse should have tried to sooth him. After seeing his depression at home, you would think someone would have reached out to him. It frustrates me when people let other people suffer like that.
By the way, I like you analysis that he "rang the cowbell announcing that death could not be a surprise on 'this day.'"
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