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Post by reluedders on Jul 13, 2024 14:19:40 GMT
I'm sorry I'm posting early, but I will be at the bottom of the Grand Canyon when this is all due.
Throughout the entire part when Maria was getting the abortion, I noted multiple time about how the doctor just seemed no nonchalant about the gravity of the procedure. Was it because Didion wanted to make it seem like a "normal" thing, even though in the 1960s it was anything BUT normal? Was it supposed to be from Maria's POV- like she didn't really "care" what was going on, so the doctor sounded very direct and unsympathetic? Thoughts?
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Post by Dr. Nemmers on Jul 19, 2024 15:29:31 GMT
I would say that both of these align with my reading-- that the doctor is attempting to treat this as a routine procedure, and that Maria is trying to downplay (or block out) what's happening to avoid the trauma. There is also the matter of stigma and judgment here--- he probably feels that she has been careless and immoral, and his lack of sympathy is for that reason. (He also may be performing several of these every day, who knows?)
We should link the abortion episode with the related episode in which Maria tries to visit her child Kate, only to be told by a nurse or orderly or worker that she's not supposed to see Kate without advanced notice, and that Kate seems to be under some sort of medication? Taken together, we see how much separation or distance (there's that word again) that Kate has from her children, and how much control other people have to determine her life...
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Post by gillianlaird on Jul 19, 2024 19:47:03 GMT
I think this could very well be a mix of both points that you make: the doctor is probably so used to doing these procedures that he has grown desensitized to what is actually going on, and Maria is trying to hide the agony she is in over the entire thing. The more interesting of the two to me is Maria, because a majority of the novel is told from this distanced and almost indifferent view point. I think that this speaks a lot to how Maria feels and who she is as a character/who she has become. Like the doctor, I think she too has become desensitized to what her life has become.
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Post by garrison on Jul 23, 2024 21:01:48 GMT
I think a big part of the doctors nothingness is due to the times. This is clearly not a standard proceedure, and the room it takes place in hammers it home that this is not above the board. I think the doctor is well past the line of doing his doctorly duties for the common good and wants to get in and get out for his check. As far as Maria, the doctors uncaring demenure disuades Maria for showing any emotion at all. She knows this is not a place that would comfort a grieving mother, so why waste her tears with this doctor.
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Post by dcomeaux on Jul 25, 2024 1:23:20 GMT
I think this could very well be a mix of both points that you make: the doctor is probably so used to doing these procedures that he has grown desensitized to what is actually going on, and Maria is trying to hide the agony she is in over the entire thing. The more interesting of the two to me is Maria, because a majority of the novel is told from this distanced and almost indifferent view point. I think that this speaks a lot to how Maria feels and who she is as a character/who she has become. Like the doctor, I think she too has become desensitized to what her life has become. I agree with the fact that Maria is hiding or distancing herself from the agony of the whole situation. I think that point is driven home even further when throughout the book she has moments where she thinks about the baby. One, in particular, is when she parked the car and cried against the steering wheel because that was the day the baby would have been born. I think the doctor's nonchalantness is because of several factors....he is doing the procedure under the table and he just wants to get in and out and get paid. |
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Post by Rylee Wenzel on Jul 25, 2024 2:53:31 GMT
I do think Maria was in fact trying to distance herself from the situation. I don't think that it was that she didn't care but that she didn't want herself to care. It makes it easier for her if she attempts to separate herself. I think the doctor's nonchalant attitude was probably do to a) it was a procedure he was getting paid for and b) he to do it on the down low because of the times. Kind of a get your patients in and out kind of thing.
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