When I Woke Up Tuesday Morning It Was Friday Analysis
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By nature, human beings are social creatures who need interactions with other people in order to survive and thrive. Because connections and relationships with other individuals are a characteristic that is so deeply embedded in human nature, it is inevitable that the consequences of such interactions will profoundly impact one’s self. In her essay “Hard to Get: Twenty-Something Women and the Paradox of Sexual Freedom,” Leslie Bell describes the experiences of two women, Jayanthi and Alicia, and the impact that their familial and sexual relationships have on their conceptions of self and their perceptions of their identities. Similarly, in “When I Woke Up Tuesday Morning, It Was Friday,” Martha Stout details the manner in which the early traumatic experiences of a woman named Julia force her to define her conception of self without any knowledge of the trauma of her past. In the same vein, Andrew Solomon’s “Son” discusses how Solomon’s relationship with his parents both positively and negatively impacted the way that he…show more content… Stout alludes to this when she asks Julia, “All this time that you’ve been so unhappy, all the times you’ve tried to end your life, what did you think was causing all that misery?” and Julia responds, “I thought I was crazy” (429). Because she was unware of the trauma she had experienced at the hands of her parents, Julia “thought [she] was crazy.” The misery in her life became a significant part of her self even though she was unaware of what had caused it. As a result, Julia’s conception of self was defined in response to the trauma of her past, although her inability to access her memory of it prevented her from understanding the trauma’s impact on her definition of her sense of