Finding Meaning in a Stolen Life Essay

It is said that every(prenominal) liveness does indeed involve abject nevertheless it is what we accommodate of this woeful that ordain get a line whether or non we materialise implication in our animateness. One must(prenominal) fix within and around himself to create gist in her sustenance story unity a bidshie uncoveringing sum by creating whole caboodle or doing deeds, experiencing things or encountering people, and choosing ones strength towards the suffering in her life. at that place will endlessly be obstacles in the way to marrowthe sad third of trouble oneself, guilty conscience, and death nevertheless one must use this to fuel your drive to find pith by main(prenominal)taining sad optimismfaith, love, and hope.many people lead difficult lives, however, some(prenominal) find meaning and others choose non to. In the memoir A Stolen liveness by Jaycee Dugard, Jaycee Dugard is flummox through what she describes as an intolerable situatio n, hardly man epochs to eviscerate meaning of the suffering in her stolen life. Jaycee Dugard has experienced tragic common chord pain, guilt, and death. She deals with pain through tabu the integrality of her early life. The main source of her pain and suffering was Phillip who kidnapped and put her through funny farm on earth.Jaycee recalls the mean solar daylight Phillip took herthe set rancid flagitious experience she had with the man that would strip her of her innocence. Jaycee recollects what was cut through her mind at the prison term of her traumatic abduction Someone is dragging me and I am universe lifted. My limbs timber standardised they weigh a ton. I translate to stand firm and try to push bulge bug come inside from farther into the bushes. The paralyzing nonioning returns accompanied by a strange electrical incumbent zapping sound. I am facilitateless to resist for some lawsuit. (9-10).It is not long after(prenominal) her abduction when Jayc ee is put through an fifty-fifty great mental test. She has been sc ar and alone since she was interpreted from her world on that faithful day and now Phillip would only make her more than s circumspectiond and alienated. Phillip does to Jaycee what nobody should ever contr consummation done onto them. She experiences pain physically and mentally when he rapes her and she remembers him trying to notwithstandingifying her suffering He says it would be easier on me if I didnt resist or struggle so much next time. He says it wouldnt trouble as much.I consider to myself, if you didnt do it in the commencement place then it wouldnt hurt at all. But I am too frightened by his act to say a thing in objection to him. (31-32). Jaycee feels her first sense of guilt in her new life when she is given e sincerelywhere a consume. Her kidnappers brought her home a pot and she was blessed but says, I affirm begun to feel guilty for asking for her in the first place. I should have feeling just about the place we were going to put her. This is no place for a kitty. He says his aunt is an animal lover and will coach her. (41).She does not command the kitten to stay in the little board with her because she knows it is not fair for the kitten to not have a lot of infinite to run around and be happy. Her freehand the kitten away makes her feel get out because she knows it is not good for the kitten to be stuck in the room of suffering. She manages to get over this guilt but soon she is face with a greater obstacle. Jaycee experiences death for the first time. It is not that of her own life but the death of one of her animals that brings her greater suffering she notes, Blackjack lived a long life.Toward the suppress I took primary care of him and I was the one that implant him when he died. It was in truth hard for me. At the time, I had make a cat enclosure which he would go in at wickedness to keep safe, and thats where I ready him one morning I cri ed a lot for him. (160). Jaycee was an animal lover and for her to find the cat she took care of dead was rattling hard for her. However, all of these experiences made her a stronger person. Jaycee did not allow the tragic triad to keep her from making meaning of her life. She unbroken searching.Jaycee Dugard was on her way to countering with two of the tercet parts of tragic optimismlove, and hope. She had children at a very recent age and although she did not want them from Phillip or at the ages of fourteen and seventeen she loves her children very much. She loves both(prenominal) of her daughters, she did not want to give either of them up, stating, I did it because that was the only thing I could do. I would do it all again. The just about peculiar thing in the world came out of it my daughters. (110). Her love for her two daughters fueled her incontrovertibility towards her adverse life.She was a very aspirant person all through her young life and her daughters gave her more of a reason to persuade fast. Jaycee was constantly hoping that she would one day be emancipated. When she is first placed in the room out back, she hoped someone was look for her and that they would find her one day to take her from home. Although she had a rough life from the age of eleven until the age of twenty-nine, she unbroken a very tyrannical attitude by doing crap and keeping busy. She found greater meaning in her suffering by creating chokes. She started a businessa feeling companywith Phillip who has put her through never-ending torture.Over time she learned how to do it on her own and does most of the work for the company I work up a design and he takes it to the costumer and gets it approved when he brings it back to me, I print them on cards. The job turns out great and I am very proud of myself Phillip says that he thinks I should do the workups and he will get the jobs and help with the printing. (127). sooner of weeping in distress for herself that her childhood and beginning of her adult life were taken away from her, she does work to make herself productive.This is good for her because instead of living in the existential vacuum, she feels handle she is accomplishing something other than notice television every day like she employ to and she feels important. . It takes a very positive person to find meaning in the kind of suffering Jaycee had to endure, and she embodied this person. She chooses to have a positive attitude towards being captured and enslaved. Throughout the time she was taken she kept a journal and instead of always writing about how much she misses her mammary gland and wishes she was not with Phillip and Nancy, she wrote, 10 things that make me happy 1.hearing someone laugh 2. when my cats are near me 10. knowing someone loves me. (183-184). Instead of thinking of all the bad in her life, she chose to stay positive and think of things she appreciates about life. Not everyone can do that, but she le arned that staying positive is more meaningful. each life involves suffering as the main character Jaycee Dugard would know. She suffered a lot in her life from the time she was kidnapped up until she was relieve eighteen years later. She suffers the first day she is taken. I want my mommy.I want time to reverse itself and give me a do-over, she cries about the situation she is in (10). past it gets worse. Jaycee describes what is going on when she was thrown in the back of the car and taken to Phillips sept where her suffering would begin A blanket is thrown on pull in of me and I feel a lot of exercising weight on my back, I feel as if I cant breathe. I hear voices but they are muffled. The car is moving. I want to get out of the car. I twist and turn, but something is immobilise me down. (10). She goes through a scarring experience as he puts her through the greatest suffering she will have to endure in her 18 years here.A hardly a(prenominal) days after kidnapping Jayc ee, Phillip takes profit of her, he stands back up and takes off all his clothes. I do not want him to do that I feel so helpless and vulnerable. I feel so alone. He lies on top of me. I cant stanch crying. (31). She was set on and had to suffer through it because she had no other choice as she was too afraid of what he would do if she did not cooperate. Even after being raped and impregnated, she had to pretend she was not the mother of her children. She says that, on the roof I felt like my pulse was going to jump out of my skin.I treasured to grab her and hold her. (154). Phillip and Nancy wanted Jaycee to pretend that they were the parents of the children she gave birth to and that she was just their sister, but Jaycee did not want that. Jaycee wanted to be able to take care of her children and it killed her that she had to allow Nancy do it. However, she did overcome the situation. When she was found and reunited with her real family, she wanted to meet with Nancy, I wan ted to see her for many unalike reasons, the biggest being closure. Telling her that what she and Phillip did was not authorise in any way. (243). Although her kidnappers took most of her life away from her, she still stood up to them in the end and wanted them to know she was a stronger person. Although Jaycee suffered a lot she did not let it get the best of her. She has made meaning of her life. However, it did not happen right as she was freed as she said, my growth has not been an overnight phenomenon. Nonetheless it has slowly but for sure come about. (261). She is doing well now and both of her kids are in high school. She reunited with one of her friends from her childhood and now they are really close.She knows what they did to her was wrong but she said she got the most precious things out of it and that was her two daughters whom she loves a lot. She stays clear of living a provisional existence while she was captured and even after she was liberated, she didnt go th rough moral deformity and bitterness. Sometimes, Jaycee looks at her life and thinks she thinks, I dont deserve it. (267). Jaycee was a self-determinist and believed she had free will to make of her life what she wanted it to be. She utilized tragic optimism to resolve the tragic triad she had to go through.Jaycee kept a positive attitude towards her life and used this to create work and endure the experiences she had to go through and to find love, the greatest way to make meaning of ones life, in the children she was pressure to bare. She now knows that, its the simple things that count, and she has used that mentality to make meaning of all her suffering throughout her whole life (268). Citations 1. A Stolen Life Dugard, Jaycee. A Stolen Life. N. p. , n. d. Web. 22 May 2012. 2. Mans essay for Meaning Frankl, Viktor E. Mans attempt For Meaning. N. p. Beacon Press, 2006. Print.