Divorced, Beheaded, Survived

"...DIVORCED, BEHEADED, SURVIVED"

by Robin Black

Upon experiencing our first encounter with death, something changes within us. Whether it is a seemingly insignificant alteration appearing in our attitude towards our fellow human beings, or a more unequivocal adjustment in the way we perceive the world around us, death always has an impact on every single individual to whom it is presented. Coping with the loss of a loved one is never effortless nor uncomplicated, but nevertheless it is inevitable that we try. In Robin Black's short story "... Divorced, Beheaded, Survived" Sarah ponders over the way we deal with death, when her son is in a similar situation as to when she experienced her brother's death as a child.

In "... Divorced, Beheaded, Survived" the reader follows the mind of the now 40-year-old Sarah. The narrative used throughout the story is a first person narrator, which allows the reader access to Sarah's thoughts and feelings, but denies entrance into everyone else's minds. This way of narrating the story, let's the reader identify primarily with Sarah, upon being introduced to her ways of thinking. This also helps the reader understand Sarah's love towards her brother, Terry. Terry's introduction in the story is told from the perspective of the 10-year-old Sarah, as the present protagonist looks back on when she and her friends used to role play in their back yard. Terry is described with love and affection, as well as a very explicit admiration: "My older brother, Terry, was undoubtedly the most convincing. [...] It was almost worth giving up the role yourself just to watch Terry give it his all." It seems that from a very young age Sarah had a healthy, loving relationship with her brother, thinking very highly of his acting skills, but still not being intimidated into not fighting for the role of Anne Boleyn herself.

Therefore it is simple for the reader to understand Sarah's struggle when her brother suddenly dies an untimely death at the age of thirteen. When looking back upon this, Sarah describes it is unexpected from the 10-year-old Sarah's point of view: "[...] but then he died in '74, which shocked me when it happened, but now, thirty years later, it seems to have been as inevitable a conclusion as the strike of Molly's axe," thus emphasizing her, at the time, own inexperience with loss. The short story uses different techniques to emphasize this theme of losing. From the very beginning the children's pastime reenacting the deaths of the wives of King Henry VIII, forecasts the terrible event that will happen. The joyous approach towards the execution scene stands in great contrast to the tabooing of Henry's death, that later appears among the children, who after the spring of '73, never again assemble to act out the