Overview:
Terry Tempest William, one of the most notorious and effective correspondents of the 21st century. She presently acquaints the English Language at the University of Utah. Williams’s distinctive technique of hoisting the socio-economic and political dilemmas and pilgrimage for the right antidotes, entrenched by the magnificence of adorable words is incredible.
Her belief in the manifestation of expression and freedom of speech is enthralling. As a correspondent and a jovial worker, her erudite approach is scholastic, always aspiring to educate her readers through hoisting of skirmishes on one particular issue. She doubtlessly addresses her municipal apprehensions, indeed one of the exemplary authors, bibliomaniacs are bestowed with.
Analytical Essay:
In her short essay, the
clan of One-breasted Women, Williams explores the consequence of nuclear
testing, the implications of environmental genocides, and the spirit of debate.
The founder awakens the people, specifically women for being wet. She always
reckoned that the women of her clan inherited disastrous genes, inducing seven
out of eight women to die from cancer (including her mother).
However, her inclusive
lineage never consumed tobacco, tea, coffee, or even alcohol. However, one day
Williams and her father, while reflecting on the past, decipher a marvelous
dream of a glazing flash on the sky, which was the flash elicited of atomic
bombs being assessed by the United States government, discharging the
disastrous radiations into the atmosphere. It was the juncture that she
acknowledged that the delightful sight she was in love with wasn’t that
fantastic. The spectacle she always cherished in her life was the smoke
that rose from the demonstration of atomic bombs all across the horizon. She
states,
“The flash of light in the night in the desert,
which I had always thought was a dream, developed into a family nightmare”.
As the dissertation proceeds, the author embellished the anguish and the pain, the citizens of Utah suffered, prompted by the nuclear testing of the 1950s. She delineates the words of her grandmother summoning her mother just before her demise,
“Diane, it is one of the most spiritual experiences
you will ever encounter”.
After
narrating the final phrases of her mother in the hospital,
“Children, I am fine. I want you to know I felt the
arms of God around me”.
Williams's hue changes from a diffident girl to a complacent and combative woman who’s thoughtful to stand against the injustices faced by her people. Every word inscribed by her pen in the essay presents sorrow, trauma, and vexation on the departure of the naive souls. She footnotes her father, who despite the causality of his wife, loved his country and its government. Though the ridiculous administration took his every domination, he always nurtured the dazzling beauty of sandstones and landscapes.
Despite the government's delinquency of man the man in the street, he was so patriotic. She mentions Irene Allen, five juveniles’ mother, who was widowed twice by devastating cancer bestowed by radioactive testimonies. Her first husband died of leukemia in 1956 and her second husband died of pancreatic cancer in 1978. She expressed the tragic story of how Allen's five children were orphaned by the turmoil encountered.
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The pain illustrated in
the essay has been aggravated by the usage of conceits and similes;
“I watched beautiful women become bald as Cytoxan, cisplatin, and Adriamycin were injected into their veins. I hold their foreheads as they vomited green black bile and I shot them with morphine when the pain became inhuman. In the last, I witnessed their last peaceful breaths becoming a midwife to the rebirth of their souls”, and
“Their soft leather
pads on paws and feet recognized the shaking sand, while the roots of shaking
mesquite and sage were smoldering. Rocks were hot from the inside out and dust
devils hummed unnaturally and each time there was another nuclear test, ravens
watched the desert heave.”
The endurance and
vigor in each expression not only captivate but also consolidate anthologies,
making them realize to foresee the oppressions conducted around them against
humanity by the demons born and raised in the hands of humanity.
The author is also
a flag bearer of Independence and freedom of articulation. She denies the
notion of stillness and lull. She wants every one of her reader to be free in their
speech, expression, and vitalities. She also laments the sermon taught to her
and elaborates in these incredible assertions, “In Mormon culture, authority is
respected, obedience is revered and independent thinking is not. I was taught
as a young girl not to ‘make waves or ‘rock boat'…. I must Question
everything”. She also narrates the words of her mother always reminding her,
“Just let it go. You know how you feel. That’s what
counts”.
The advent of a
strong and forceful woman can be seen from a diffident girl, who was taught to
stay modest and quiet.
She actively
tries to insinuate a complete spirit to raise questions about the actions, even
those conducted by authorities. She then confides in her dream in which she saw
ten women sauntering in the desert while singing a Shoshoni song. The rhyme was
all about mourning on the disastrous ailment of their homeland, how their
territory was seized from their children, and how their refuge was obliterated
by an atomic bomb pushing them towards demise.
“Red hot pain beneath the desert promised
death only as each bomb became stillborn”.
She endeavors to
bring her female audience into litigation by making them feel the concussion of
child loss.
Williams also cites assorted lawsuits filed against the authority by the fatalities besides her references to her invincible loyalty to the country and suffering. Though commotion of dwellers, the government continued to substantiate that the conditions of testing were completely prudent and secure and that it didn’t cause any harm to inhabitants. Even it was declared that there was “virtually uninhabited desert terrain,” in Nevada, to which Williams responded,
“My family members were some of the virtual
inhabitants”.
She asserts that
“National Security” is the preference of the government and not “Public health”.
While revealing the government's temperament, she narrates the words of Atomic Energy Commissioner, Thomas Murray, who stated,
“Gentlemen, we must not
let anything interfere with this series of tests, nothing”.
The claims for medical ordinances and casualties were repudiated by the government and it turned its back on humanity. She concocts, “To our court system, it doesn’t matter whether the United States government was irresponsible, whether it lied to its citizens, or even the citizens died from the fallout of nuclear testing. What matters is that our government is immune. The King can do no wrong.” This time she aims at centralizing all other readers, males, and females, to join their hands and let the world clatter by the uproar raised by a gigantic nation, influential enough to commandeer their rights.
She concludes the essay
by narrating the phenomenon where she and the other nine females were arrested
by the police while embarking to traverse the testing zone illegally. They were
captured for civil noncompliance. While her hands were clenched by the handcuffs,
the cop found a pen in her boot and inquired about it. The author conceded with
the words “weapon” with a dauntless and a signature smile on her face. The
police took Williams and her peers to Nevada and discharged them there.
While being acquitted, she reminisced the night with her mother, when they strolled in the harvest moon in May while the owls and doves (though peaceful) were mourning on the hazardous spectacle of the magnificent city of Utah, prompted by the constant testing of atom bombs.
Her whole essay, The Clan of one-breasted women can be summarized in Williams's own remarkable
words,
“The fear and inability to question authority that
ultimately killed communities in Utah during atmospheric testing of atomic
weapons were the same fear I saw being held in my mother's body. Sheep. Dead
sheep”.
The entire seven-page
essay of Williams focuses on the empowerment and emancipation of local
citizens. Being a polemicist of two breast biopsies and a malignant tumor, she
endures a way of life and is indeed a living specimen of audacity and boldness.
She narrates a tale of fear, and a saga of perpetual struggle in the
exploration of sensibility and raising voice no matter, who’s in front, whether
authority, Richie rich or destitute.
The essay is summarized by, Syeda Rabia Batool Naqvi, a permanent contributor to the SOL Community.
