Talking To The Dead Essay Research Paper

Talking To The Dead Essay, Research Paper

Nina in ” Talking to the Dead ”

The love of the two sisters in “Talking to the Dead” of Helen Dunmore is

somehow complicated. One is three years older than the other, they play their

roles perfectly between sister and sister. When they were young, the younger one

almost obeyed whatever the older said with no objection:

“and she knelt down and puts her arms round me, mouthing over my head to our father, ‘Neen wanted it to be a girl.’ I’d wanted nothing, but I hid my face in Isabel’s shirt .”

As child, they seem to fit in the game “mother- daughter”: “this time I lay passive, staring up at her while she patted me to sleep, the way we patted our dolls.” (Dunmore_61). Such relationship can be reflected not just in the past, but in what they acknowledge in the present as well. Yesterday they shared so many memories together: the beach, the picnic, even the curiosity about their Mom’s giving birth to the little brother, Colin: ” What’s it like, having the baby . I asked Isabel, and she wrinkled her nose, remembering. Noisy, she said at last.” ( Dunmore_ 58).Yet today they also share their knowledge for each other which is a secret nobody knows, but them. What is the message the author want to tell . What we can tell about such a special relationship of the two sisters who were raised under one roof; they were offered the same love from their parents, and the older seems to be always take care of the younger one as good as a mother: ” Isabel held me tight round the waist as the waves sucked below us. The water was deep here, and dangerous Isabel’s hands held me tight as I leaned out to throw the line clear of the rocks ” (Dunmore_59). Unfortunately, everything changes when they grow up. Having an affair with her sister’s husband, Nina lead Isabel comes to suicide as she find out the truth. How could such tragedy happened. Whose fault. Nina. The questions need answers.. What is reinforcement for her doing so. Does she has reason for that.

They are sisters, they are best friends, Isabel and Nina altogether they shared a great of memories in childhood. Since the death of their little brother, Colin, they seem to be closer than ever. Grown up, Nina lives in London and works as a photographer; beautiful Isabel is married to Richard, a successful economist and settles her life at a small town in country. As Isabel has a first child, Nina comes to look after her sister. The reunion of the two sisters does awake their childhood, which was believed it had already gone; and the link between their dead baby brother with Isabel’s baby points out the hiding truth which stays beyond Nina’s expectation. Who killed the baby. Nina. Isabel. The questions still wait for the answers. Mean while, Nina has an affair with Richard. Later on, Isabel notices the relationship between her husband and her sister, she kills herself and leaves the baby for her husband and Nina.

Nina or Neen, as her sister usually calls her is the protagonist of ” Talking to the Dead”, a particular one and a talent photographer “They wanted to look at the camera, I had a Polaroid with me too, and that made things easy.”(Dunmore_15). She likes to take pictures, she likes to draw, she likes food and she likes sex. Independence, intensity, and a bit persistence, Nina is really an attractive character to me.

Nina loves food and likes cooking. She uses food to get out her bad feeling when she was told that Isabel is in risk of health:

” My hands shook I had a pain in my throat ..I was clutching my towel tightly round me Then I went straight into the kitchen, cut a thick crust of a fresh white loaf, smeared it with butter ..and ate it fast ..There was sweat on my forehead kept on eating. I was not going to let myself think of the things Richard has said, not yet.” (Dunmore_12.13)

In the way she prepare the dinner for everybody in Isabel’s house, Nina proves strongly that she is an expert in cooking and knows how to select the best items to serve for the meal: “They are not the right apples ..they must be cut evenly I let it cook a little longer ..Now it looks right I dip in run my finger over its back, then taste, closing my eyes…” (Dunmore_68.69).The language here is beautiful, the taste, the smell, the flavor, all that brings out a passion in which the reader can sink in the journey of her cooking to experience. What a passion ! She is so sure that she is a good cook: “People who likes cooking make the best cook.”

Likewise, Nina is a young woman who is not a usual woman. She has her job as a photographer, and live alone in London. In addition, she does not care much about her appearance. The makeup, the scents or all stuffs which belong to woman seem not to bother her at all; otherwise, they ” seemed so complicated ” (Dunmore_21) to her. Mean while, this could explain why she likes to take her own picture when she is naked. She admits that the way she is naked is not for sex, but “just naked” (Dunmore_21). In her belief, the body, her body at least, is viewed as an object for her picture, no more no less and it is not a symbol of sex; otherwise, it should be something else, something about ” technicality” : ” In one I was naked. Not naked the way I’d want anyone else to see me, not posing naked or sex naked.” (Dunmore_21). This might help explain why she could have sex with Richard ev