My Symbol

Sorrow
Having a first hand experience with the people of Ukraine and visiting the Chernobyl museum, it is extremely prevalent to me that the people affected by this tragedy exhibit an extreme amount of pain and sorrow. There is no way that anyone could not be moved by seeing the photos taken from the aftermath of this horrible explosion. The stories told by anyone who has been involved in this destruction are heart-wrenching and tragic. Each story tells a different level of loss, and shows a different type of regret and sorrow, depending on their involvement or loss. The pain and suffering the people of Ukraine and the other counties that were greatly harmed, such as Greece, Sweden, Norway or Austria, are still present today. The more recent generations and future generations to come are still experiencing genetic deformities that can have a profound impact on their health.

Universal Themes

Losing everything

• "Even if it's poisoned with radiation, it's still my home. There's no place else they need us. Even a bird loves its nest..." (69)
• "We lived through the war, now radiation? Even if we have to bury ourselves, we're not going." (68)
• This concept is repeated over and over in the book showing the devastation people experienced from the explosion and radiation. They lost everything they once knew: their relatives, homes, land, animals and most importantly, their way of life.

Love

• This theme illustrates the love and passion the affected people of Pirpyat and the entire country expressed for their homes and land. The stories told in this story show the immense love the people had for one another and their lost country.

Death

• This theme is obvious, it should not be questioned as to how many people lost their lives and how much death and destruction was present after the explosion. Not only the people who lost their lives, or were physically harmed by the radiation, but the animals and plants along with the death of a culture. An entire way of life was wiped out in that region.

War

• "I'd never been to war, but I got a firmiliar feeling" (34)
• This theme shows the brutality of the government towards its people and its lack of regard for its people and their emotions. The concept of war is always complicated, but shown to illistrate how the people felt threatened by their own officers and soldiers.

Lies

• "The papers wrote: 'The air around the reactor is clean.' We'd read it and laugh, then curse a little." (186)
• After the reactor explosion, the Soviets had absolute incompetence and disregard for the people that were harmed. They had told a series of out-and-out lies to try and cover up their obvious and blatant mistakes. All of this destruction and pain could have been avoided, if it wasn't for the nuclear testing that went too far that tragic day in Ukraine.

Allusions

• "God was dividing things up somewhere, and by the time the line came to me, there was nothing left." - refferencing God and his control
• "They'd wait there. Like during the war, when they were burning down the villages. Why would our soldiers chase us?" - most likely referring to World War 2 and the destruction the Ukrainian people went through, since Ukraine was one of the most devasted Soviet country during the war
• "But in one village they do sit me down at the table - grilled lamb and everything. The host gets a little drunk and admits it was a young lamb. 'I had to slaughter him. I couldn't stand to look at him anymore. He was the ugliest damn thing! Almost makes me not want to eat him. Me: I just drank a whole glass of vodka real quick. After hearing that..." - referring to the deformities and genetic mutations that the radiation caused in humans and animals from the reactor's explosion
• "We knew that vodka helped. It removed the stress. It's no wonder they gave people those 100 grams of vodka during the war. And then it was just like home: a drunk traffic cop fines a drunk driver." - referencing the astonishing amount of alcoholics in the former Soviet Union. Or the use of alcohol by the Russian troops during wartime.
• "What's it like, radiation? Maybe they show it in the movies? Have you seen it? Is it white, or what? Some people say it has no color and no smell, and others say it's black." - alluding to the complete lack of care by the government to inform its citizens of the dangers or characteristics of radiation. Or even the basic concept of the harm they faced. The disregard of the government for its people.

Summary

On April 26, 1986, at 1:23:58 a series of explosions destroyed the #4 energy block of the Chernobyl Nuclear Power Station. This catastrophe at Chernobyl became the largest technological disaster of the twentieth century. This book tells the horrific tales of people who were affected by the explosion, either directly or indirectly; losing family members, loved ones, their homes, and their lives. It is a collection of stories from wives, soldiers, workers, teachers, and anyone in the area that had a legitimate experience with the coexistance of the deadly radiation. Their tales are horrific, greusome and heartbreaking; it is hard to imagine the full extent of what went in in Ukraine after that avoidable misfortune.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qm07_C5ehNs

Imagery

• Repetition - "But every day I would hear: Dead. Dead. Tischura is dead. Titenok is dead." (15)
• Simile - "It was like a sledgehammer to my brain." (15)
• Personification - "You have to understand: This is not your husband anymore, not a beloved person, but a radioactive object with a strong density of poisoning." (16)
• Foreshadowing - "None of the nurses could approach him, if they needed anything, they'd call me." (17)
• Connotation - "I escorted him all the way to the grave site. Although the thing I remember isn't the grave, its the plastic bag. That bag." (18)
• Personification - "I saw the signs on the other houses in different colors - "Dear house, forgive us!" People said goodbye to their homes like they were people. (36)
• Hubris - "It was like this: They announced over the radio that you couldn't take your cats. So we put her in the suitcase." (32)
• Repetition - "And I'm like someone who's lost her mind: 'But I love him! I love him!' He's sleeping, and I'm whispering: 'I love you!' Walking in the hospital courtyard, 'I love you.' Carrying his sanitary tray, 'I love you.' " (16)
• Personification - "'What are you protesting against?' They said: 'Against the Parliment.' They told us he was a very bad person, this Parliment." (57)
• Figurative language - "In the morning I put the kids on the train to Astrakhan, I told the conductors to transport them like they do watermelons, to not open the door." (61)
• Epiphany - "It's very clear the way they have it set up, until you've given someone a bribe and you're on the plane, there are endless problems: it's too heavy, or too much volume, you can't have this, you have to put it away. They made me put everything on the scale twice, until I realized what was happening and gave them some money." (62)
• Tone - "And I was happy once. All my children were born of love. I gave birth like this: boy, boy, boy and then girl, girl. I don't want to talk anymore. I'll start crying." (64)
• Foreshadowing - "The literature on the subject is pretty unanimous in its opinion that the Soviet system had taken a poorly designed reator than staffed it with incompetents." (xi)
• Mood - "My soul was dead there. I would have given birth to something without a soul."
• Alliteration - "We think that we're living, talking, walking, eating. Loving one another. But we're just recording information."

Archetypes

• Death - " 'My husband is dying.' They understood right away where I was from and who my husband was, and they connected me."
• Betrayal (by government) - "I want to bear witness: my daughter died from Chernobyl. And they wand us to forget about it."
• Confusion - "The farmers didn't understand why, for example, they couldn't take a bucket from their yard, or a pitcher, saw, axe. Why they couldn't harvest the crops. How do you tell them?"
• Sickness - "He stared to change - every day I met a brand-new person. The burns stared to come to the surface. In his mouth, on his tounge, his cheeks - at first there were little lesions, and then they grew. It came off in layers - as white film... the color of his face... his body... blue... red... gray-brown."
• War - "At first there was disbelief, there was a sense that it was a game. But it was a real war, an atomic war. We had no idea - what's dangerous, what's not, what we should watch out for, and what to ignore?"