The King A Vast Empire Analysis

Traumatic events can happen at any giving moment. In the United States, 7 out of 10 people have experienced something traumatic. People grief and recover in different ways after trauma, but this isn’t always easy. Danielle Evan's chapter “The King of a Vast Empire” is about a family's grievance the causes them to become dysfunctional. At ages six and nine Liddie and Terrence were in an unfortunate car accident with their parents. The impact of the accident left two children in the other vehicle dead. The narrator’s family was constantly reminded by the community of who was at fault, however, they never actually discuss the accident as a family. As a family, they carried on from that awful day, amongst themselves in different stages of how they
Within the story, each member of the family is in different phases causing them never to see eye-to-eye for future discussions. We see Terrence’s mother is facing the depression stage as she “pretends we were the ideal family, without actually talking to us,” and is “knocked out on sleeping pills” (Evans 128). A mother should have unconditional love for her children through thick and thin. After the accident, it has actually caused separation from each other. Their mother has fallen into a state where she cannot face reality while continually living in the past. She isolates herself and minimized conversation from her own children because she is not ready to face the accident. It is obvious she is trying to disregard the past, but it is unconsciously causing an awkward relationship amongst the family. The casualty still haunts his mother resulting in her taking sleeping pills to help her get through the night. She must still have bad thoughts about the death which prevents her from sleeping at night. Without communication with her family, there is no way she would be able to relieve herself of that traumatic