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It is Agnes’s Struggle Against Fate and Ill Fortune that Wins the Reader’s Sympathy. Do You Agree?

English

2 Pages Essays / Projects Year: Pre-2021

“He has pinned me to ill fortune, and although I have struggled, I am run through and through with disaster; I am knifed to the hilt with fate.” It is Agnes’s struggle against fate and ill fortune that wins the reader’s sympathy. Do you agree? Hannah Kent’s Burial Rites depicts Agnes as a malleable victim of her ill-fated struggle against destiny and misfortune through the use of language, storytelling and symbolism. By weaving these elements into her novel, the reader’s sympathy is won as they become empathetic to Agnes’ torment at the hands of her inevitable fate. The depiction of Agnes’ ill fortune in her early childhood attracts the reader’s pity as they gain insight into her vulnerability as a result of abandonment and neglect in her formative years. Likewise, the misfortune that culminates in the events at Illugastadir and Agnes’ sentence evoke a deep sense of injustice as Agnes faces the ultimate punishment for a crime she did not intend to commit. Despite this, it is Agnes’ final struggle against her mortal fate as she attempts to cling to her misshapen and mutilated humanity that ultimately wins the readers sympathy. Agnes’ childhood, marred by death and misfortune, positions the readers to gain a deeper sense of understanding of her psyche, which has been heavily influenced by her fear of abandonment and familiar relationship with the morbid. Through the retelling of Agnes’ tragic juvenile experiences, Kent reinforces the notion that fate and misfortune often dictate our lives, so much so that we lose the ability to control our actions and author our own destiny. Agnes’ troubled upbringing persuades the reader to consider that perhaps Agnes’ temperament and persecution was predetermined by the suffering inflicted on her during her early development. Abandoned by her mother as a child and left with nothing but a stone ‘so that she (I) might learn to understand the birds and never be lonely’, Agnes has been fostered by superstition and suffered so gravely that she learns to take comfort in seeing ravens, commonly regarded as omens of death. Even as she sees two ravens when she is deserted by her mother and brother, ‘their black feathers poisonous against the snow’, she believes the ravens are her mother and brother and reaches out to them for solace. Agnes is reliant on superstitions such as the ravens, as they appear to her throughout her


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