Soon

3 Pages 676 Words

Theme and Close Reading for “Soon”

Pam Durban’s “Soon” encompasses the life cycles of three generations of the Long Family. Life comes full circle in every life represented and follows in the steps of the previous generation. Elizabeth Long Crawford meets the destiny of a partially blind person when she is a young girl. Having her hopes dashed at a happy future, Elizabeth settles with a husband and has children, but both of these aspects in her life become unsatisfactory to her. Her husband dies, her son is average in her eyes, and her daughter Martha becomes the subject of constant criticism. As Martha moves on after the death of her mother, she realizes that although she wants nothing to do with her mother, she wishes she was closer to her relatives, so she organizes a family reunion. This brings about something Martha never expected. The repetitious rise and fall of hope and despair that engulfs Martha’s life takes her on the endless human journey to happiness and fulfillment.
Elizabeth Long Crawford sees Martha as one of the many failures in her life. She called Martha “horsey” and knew of all of her lacking attributes. She is so distraught in the failures of her life that she finds imperfections in other aspects of her life so as to blame those imperfections for her dissatisfying life. No one in her life was perfect, and neither was she, but this shortcoming cost her the closeness of her family and a wealth of memories left uncreated because of her low outlook on life. This eventually rubbed on Martha the wrong way and causes her to create a life for herself that is something her mother never gave her. Martha, deprived of love and motherly affection generally given by mothers, embarks on a journey to find the love and attention that she needs to thrive as a human being. Knowing she did not want to be anything like her mother, Martha set out to become a happy wife and loving mother. She married a man “against...