Northern Lights Journal Entry 2

While reading the rest of the book I had so many mixed feelings about all the characters, especially Clarissa and her Mom. I was also somewhat surprised by the ending and wasn’t expecting to find out what happened with the rest of Clarissa’s life.
Although, I had a confident feeling throughout reading the book that Clarissa would find her mother, I didn’t expect for their encounter to be so rough. I found it upsetting how when Clarissa found her mother, one of the first things her mother said was that she had every right to leave them because that wasn’t the life that she signed up for or belonged in. Often in life people are faced with situations that they don’t want to be in or paths of life that they didn’t hope to go down, but that doesn’t give anyone the right to use it as an excuse to leave their lives and the people involved because they are unhappy. While I do have sympathy for what the mother went through when she was young and raped, I think leaving her child because it reminds her of that terrible point in her life is a bit extreme. I found it quite ironic how all through the book, Clarissa complains about her mother’s actions and reasons for leaving, but yet at the end of the novel she uses a similar excuse for why she shouldn’t return to NY and to Pankaj because that’s her old life that she wasn’t happy in. This part of the book holds truth to the saying, “Like mother, like daughter”.
I was also quite surprised by the ending. I wasn’t expecting for Clarissa’s whole future to be thrown out like that in a span of a couple of pages. I expected for Clarissa to realize how wrong she was for leaving Pankaj like her mom left her, and would end up returning to NY to him. When Clarissa talks about how her future life ends up turning out and how happy she is, it compares to how her mother seems content with her new life at the cabin running the tourism excursion. I finished the book pleased with the ending, because sometimes I hate finishing the book wondering what happened with the characters; although, it allows the reader to be imaginative, it can be annoying not knowing what the author was thinking when finishing the book and what would happen to the characters afterward.
After reading the Narrative Sequence assignment I have decided to do the option where I have to examine a close reading in the book. I am considering looking at the close reading where Clarissa gives herself reasoning for why she shouldn’t return to NY and Pankaj, and how this relates to her mother’s explanation for leaving her family when Clarissa and her mother have their encounter at the cabin. I think it would be interesting to examine the whole “Like mother, like daughter” aspect that I mentioned before; how all through the book Clarissa complains of her mother’s actions but yet replays some of them herself. Mother-daughter relationships are very unique in how similar both people are, and how even if the daughter doesn’t want to be like her mother, it’s likely that she will at least act in similar ways as her mother. I was wondering if I could use direct quotes from both parts of the book (Clarissa/mother encounter at cabin when her mother says why she left and when Clarissa decides not to go back to Pankaj at the end of the book), even though they aren’t in the same close reading?