Georgi Fear

We see fear represented as insecurity resulting in the deterioration of one’s health. This is seen in the immediate physical consequences of stress on the children, as well as in the long term physical consequences of stress on the children, and it is also seen in the stress caused by the fear of not being secure through the children’s relationship with their entourage. Through these instances, Aviv criticizes a society, violating children’s sense of security. Firstly, we see immediate physical consequence on children as a result of fear in the case of Georgi’s reaction after reading the letter from the Swedish government which stated that “(they) must leave the country” (Aviv). One can perceive this reaction as symptoms of acute psychological
effect due to the fact that the boy’s home is Sweden and he is kicked out of what he considers his home. We also see immediate physical consequences on children as we see Georgi refusing “to get out of bed” or even eat. One can understand that he is trying to process the tragic information and to cope the information he enters a state of denial. We see in the article that Georgi had “lost 13 pounds in a week” (Aviv) and he stops eating for four days and he had not spoken “a full sentence in a week”. The fact that he stopped speaking shows signs of rebellion against the system who is kicking him out of his home and from his friends. We also see at the hospital that Georgi did not show any sign of “reaction to caregiving” (Aviv). We have the sense that the boy has given up his will to live because of the letter who has taken away all sense of security Georgi has in Switzerland. We see that Georgi’s body does not react to stimuli as the doctor lifts his wrist above his forehead, the doctor notice that it “fall down on his face” (Aviv). One can argue that an acute high stress level caused by the letter led the boy to enter into a state of limbo. Not only fear is represented through the immediate physical consequence on the children, it is also identified through the long-term impact on the children.
We see these long-term physical consequences in the case of Georgi’s when his friends and teacher come to visit him, but he does not have the ability to “process language” (Aviv). We see signs of deterioration of mental health as Georgi’s sickness does not decrease but does not increase. It seen in the article that after four months of sickness Georgi began to drool. This can perhaps signify that Georgi’s stress-caused deterioration state on a long-term impaired the muscle around his mouth. At the Falun hospital, the doctor noticed that Georgi has “no muscle tone in neither arm or leg” (Aviv) and it was difficult to trigger his reflexes. The doctor described the boy in his report as “barely alive”. It is as if as Georgi’s illness, prolonged, it diminishes his will to live more and more. We also see long-term impacts in Djeneta, a girl from Kosovo who had being “bedridden and unresponsive for two years and a half” (Aviv). We can assume that the stress and pressure the government exerted on this girl and her family must have been so intense that it made her enter into a state of illness similar to
Georgi’s. We also see fear as a result of insecurity through the multiple repercussions that this constant uncertainty has on the children’s relationship with their entourage. Georgi saw his friend who was a refugee like him been deported this made him “sullen and aloof”, and he also “stopped speaking Russian” (Aviv). One can presume that seeing his friend being deported raised a sense of awareness into Georgi which is why he became sullen and aloof as a sign of rebellion against the system. The fact that he stopped speaking Russian shows that he was ashamed to be a refugee and that he did not consider himself as a Russian boy. We see that as the government refuses the family’s application for asylum, it creates tension in Georgi’s family. He was angry at his parents and blamed them for causing the government’s rejection of their asylum because they “failed to assimilate” (Aviv) since they did not learn to speak Swedish. One can see that the pressure that is exerted on Georgi’s family by the government leads the family in a self-destructive state; indeed, Georgi who is a member of the family is turning against his own parents during a critical time when they all need each other. In the end, Aviv criticizes in her article an oppressive society that violates children’s childhood by taking away their sense of security. The author shows how fear can result into insecurity and cause a child’s health deterioration. This phenomenon is seen through the acute physical impact of stress on the children as well as the long-term physical impact of stress on the children, we also see stress caused by the fear of not being secure through the children’s relationship with their entourage. As a result, fear that is identified through the feeling of no security causes a decrease in a child’s health.