Story

Jon was hitch-hiking on the highway when an attractive woman in a red truck picked him up. While they were driving, the woman grabbed a knife from her glove department and stabbed Jon to death. As she was trying to dispose of the body, she lost control of her truck, and crashed into a tree.

Novel Synthesis

Jodi Picoult's novel, “My Sister’s Keeper”, and Stevie Smith's poem, “Not Waving But Drowning”, both demonstrate a victim that is being ignored by society. Anna, the main character in “My Sister’s Keeper”, was born only to save the life of her sister, Kate, who was diagnosed with leukemia at age two. Anna was genetically engineered to match her sister’s DNA, and was the only one that could save her life. Anna’s parents automatically assumed that she would donate her blood, bone marrow, and kidney willingly. However, Anna wanted to be able to make her own decisions and have a life of her own. The only way for Anna to escape the life of her sister is to sue her parents for medical emancipation. It took a lot of courage for Anna to hire a lawyer, but she wanted her parents to hear what she had to say. Anna’s mother ignores her daughter’s decision because she believes Anna is only looking for attention. She had fought her whole life for her parents to understand why she didn’t want to donate her organs anymore and in the end it cost her life.

The man in “Not Waving but Drowing” is similar to Anna’s character because he is also being ignored and misinterpreted by others. The character was “not waving but drowning”, he was attempting to get the attention of others. He was misunderstood, and because of the ignorance of others "now he's dead". The bystanders didn’t realize how far the victim was in the water. They beleived he died because “it must have been to cold for him” and hey thought "his heart gave way". He spent his life trying to be heard, and have a voice but he "was much too far out all [his] life." He failed to win the attention of others, and wound up drowning while attempting to be noticed.

His whole life he was trying to be heard, and unfortunately, failed to achieve it.