Do you see any parallels or links between this chapter and the the story of the deathless man?
Does your family or anyone you know still believe in and/or practice home remedies for illnesses? What are they? Do they work?
Wednesday, July 26, 2017
Tiger's Wife Chapter 3
Why is Dure so adamant about not taking his kids to a doctor?
Do you see any parallels or links between this chapter and the the story of the deathless man?
Does your family or anyone you know still believe in and/or practice home remedies for illnesses? What are they? Do they work?
Do you see any parallels or links between this chapter and the the story of the deathless man?
Does your family or anyone you know still believe in and/or practice home remedies for illnesses? What are they? Do they work?
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Off the top of my head, I can think of three distinct home-remedies that my family still practices and are extremely effective. First, whenever I, or a family member gets a headache, instead of taking medicine, we lie down with a banana peel on our forehead for about 20 minutes. This practice has always been used in my family and still holds true today. Additionally, my grandparents grow mint leaves, and will make them into tea. This can be used for colds, flu and sore throats. The tea not only tastes good, but it will dramatically increase the way we are feeling. Lastly, my grandparents grow aloe and use it on sunburn, or burns in general. The aloe plant just sits in the house and when we have a burn, just snip a bit off, and aloe comes out to spread on your burn. Those are three home remedies that my family continues to use, and remain effective to this day.
From what I can remember my family has a couple home remedies. When I was younger my parents would always give me coke syrup to settle my stomach when I had the stomach flu. I don't know of many families that do this, but it actually helped during the times when I was sick. For sore throats my parents would either make me gargle salt water or drink tea. Both of these home remedies helped take away some of the pain I was feeling during that time. I know my grandma uses a lot of home remedies and she has told me most of them work. The ones I listed above work mostly. They obviously don't take away what illness you have, but ease some of the pain you are feeling. I do believe in home remedies, but I would prefer going to see a doctor. I wish Dure took his children to the doctor, because it could really save his children's lives.
My family still uses quite a few home remedies in case of certain ailments. For instance, if any of my siblings happen to be vomiting, my parents generally recommend to eat crackers and other salty foods. Sprite and/or Gatorade are also consumed in this case. Why do we do this? I have no clue. Does it work? Surprisingly, as long as we do not eat or drink too much or too quickly, it works pretty well. Also, in the case of colds, my mom usually makes a stew consisting of beef, corn, potatoes, and oregano. I am not really sure who she learned it from, but she was told that the oregano in the stew is supposed to help by making it easier to breathe. It sort of opens up the respiratory system and clears mucus to some extent. As far as I can tell, this remedy seems to work pretty well, too.
I think there's a sense of pride that is keeping Dure from taking his kids to see a doctor. He's sure that he's able to take care of his own children. I'd imagine most parents feel the same, that they're more than capable of properly caring for their children. I'm sure any parent wouldn't want some stranger coming in and telling them that how they're parenting is wrong, and I think Dure feels that way when Natalia suggests he take his children to the doctor. It's sad though, because sometimes the parents really are doing something wrong and this sick sense of pride could end up harming the child, even to the point of the child dying. Not only is it a pride problem, but Dure is also under the impression that his children's sickness is die to his cousin not liking where he was buried. Although the stories aren't completely connected, this part did remind me of the deathless man. I see similarities between the children's sickness being caused by the cousin's dislike for the burial place and the man not being able to die because his uncle would not allow it.
I feel like Dure not sending his kids to a doctor is the author's attempt to show the evil effects of both pride and superstition. Pride because Dure really feels a sense of personal pride to his ability to care for his own kids he refuses to take them to a doctor. superstition also plays a role in this because Dure actually believes the cause of his children's illness is that his cousin doesn't like where he was buried. If he was thinking logically he would see that the constant digging is in reality the cause of the children's illness. I think the author wants to teach the reader the dangers of buying into old legends as opposed to using actual common sense thinking.
I believe that Dure is so adamant about not taking his children to the doctor mostly because of the superstition that is surrounding their sickness. I can also agree with everyone above me, who is saying that his pride is also getting in the way. Furthermore, I am going to tack on an additional reason: guilt. It wouldn't be too far-fetched to suggest that Dure, to some degree, probably feels guilty for leaving his cousin behind in that field. There is probably a strong emotional connection to it, and the fact that everyone is getting sick only adds onto the guilt he already feels- like the sickness is his fault. When Natalia suggests that he should take his children to the clinic, he denies it again and again because he believes that he can fix it- because HE'S why it's happening. So, yes, there is a certain degree of pride that is tied into it, but I also believe that there is a sense of guilt and cruel obligation that requires him, for the betterment of his mental state, to find the body and 'fix' the problem.
In my house, the most common routines we follow when someone becomes sick revolve around: isolation, water, popsicles (I never quite understood this one, but whenever someone comes down with the flu, my mom always gives us popsicles after we've gone a few hours without puking), crackers, and Sprite. Any drink, of course, is taken in very small amounts and with incredibly tiny sips. This combination has always worked well for us, and we've been doing it for as long as I can remember.
I believe that the dead cousin that Dure is looking for could be the deathless man, Gavo. Dure has been scouring all over the vineyard to look for the cousin’s dead body but it wasn't found. Dure is also unwilling to give up on finding this dead body for some reason. It could be that he is too prideful to give up now after all the searching or some other motive. Dure being too prideful could also be the reason that he doesn't want to accept Natalia's aid (about taking his kids to a doctor).
In my family, immediate and extended, we still believe and practice home remedies. For a sore throat, my mother makes ginger tea and some weird soup. My dad breathes in the steam from a strange ginger and jasmine concoction to rid of the flu. The ginger tea does work, for me at least, but it burns and tastes nasty. I think that my dad’s methods work because he always does it when he first gets sick...so it must be doing something. We also do this "coining" thing but its pretty complicated to explain.
Dure is so certain that retrieving his cousin's body will cure their illness that he doesn't want to waste his time with medicine. They have their own traditional remedies (bags of herbs, soaking beds, etc.) to ward off the illness as long as they are digging. Tradition, superstition, and pride are all part of Dure's unwillingness. Dure wants to care for his children like many parents do. However, he believes wholeheartedly that returning his cousin's body is caring for them. In Dure's eyes trying modern medicine would only waste their time. I found it the most interesting that Dure's son didn't want treatment. My first thought was that his son was afraid to leave becuse of something his father might say or do. However, when I took a closer look at Dure's personality it's possible that his son, being raised in the same culture as his father, believes in the same things his father does with the same passion.
Home remedies, whether they work or not, seem to be somewhat persistent in just about every family. There is a few specific things that come to mind when I think of home remedies. One of them being, whenever any one of my siblings or myself got sick with a fever, we were almost always put into an ice bath. Sure, this cools you down for the time being but, it doesn't get rid of the fever right of the bat. Also, nothing was quite as irritating as being removed from the warm of your bed and put into a bath tub full of icy water. Keeping on the topic of fevers, another classic in my house was a cold washcloth on the forehead. This really didn't accomplish much of anything besides cooling you down until your our body temperature made the washcloth too hot. Another one of my favorites was gargling salt water whenever I had a sore throat because for some reason, my younger self constantly was getting strep. The things with home remedies is that they are never really guaranteed to work. There is no prescription saying, gargle salt water and take an ice bath for 3 to 5 days until symptoms are gone. Although, they do seem to work temporarily or while the remedy is being done, they don't usually last for much longer after that.
Once and a while my family will practice home remedies. For instance, one is to gargle warm salt water when you have a sore throat. My dad always tells me to do this when my throat hurts, but I can never work up the courage because I can't stand the taste of salt water. Another home remedy that has been around for a long time is to take seven sips of water when you have the hiccups. I always try this when I get them, but it never ends up working. In some cases, home remedies will make you feel better but when something major is wrong with you it is better to seek help from a doctor.
There is a difference between home remedies and too sick that a home remedy will not touch the sickness. Dure could try home remedies, but I think he should take his kids to the doctor because they will feel so much better way faster. My family uses some remedies when we are feeling under the weather. For example if I have an upset stomach my parents would say to drink Vernors, or something with carbonation. But also follow the B.R.A.T diet (bananas, rice, apples, toast) to make my stomach feel better. If I have a sore throat, I would have hot tea with honey and that would cure it quickly. A weird remedy if I am sick that I do is when I go to sleep at night I wear socks and put a raw onion in each sock. This will suck toxins out of your body from your feet. But the weirdest part is that I can see it working because when I wake up the onions are literally brown! Try it sometime and see if it makes you feel any better!
I agree with Lauren that Dure is very prideful of the family he has created. In a way, most parents are like this. They are always right when it comes to their children, which isn't always bad. From what we can tell, he is just a hard working man trying to support for his family. He fees like having a doctor help his kids would be a defeat. In this case, I think they need a little more medial attention than home remedies based on what Natalia noticed.
In my family, we don't have too many home remedies except for when you have the stomach flu. We also drink vernors, eat toast, and take a warm bath. I haven't gotten sick (threw up) since 5th grade and it is mainly due to a trick my mom taught me when I was younger. Whenever I was feeling nauseous, I just press down on the main vain on the inner side of my arm about an inch down from my wrist. It has worked for me fairly well, but I feel like I am slightly just telling myself I don't feel like I have to puke anymore
Dure doesn't take his kids to the doctor because he strongly believes his home remedies are the best thing to help them. As everyone else is saying, his pride definitely got the best of him in this situation. As any parent would, he wanted to be the one to help his kids, though it was really hurting them more than it was helping. That blinded him from seeing just how sick his kids actually were. He said it wasn't anything serious, just something that they could work off and they would be good the next morning. But Natalia was adamant on letting them see a doctor because she saw how bad it was and how bad it was going to get if they kept being forced to work like that.
Water is the biggest home-remedy of my family's that I can think of. Whenever any of us feel sick we just drink a lot of water and if need be, we take ibuprofen. She also had us gurgle hydrogen peroxide when we had strep throat and drink tea is we weren't feeling good. My mom is an emt so she usually knows when we need to go to the doctor or not. One time, it did backfire though. My little brother was having extreme head aches and my mom just kind of dismissed it and did what any parent would have done, give him medicine, have him drink water, make him go to bed early etc... After about a week, we took him to the emergency room and turns out he had sinusitis. He had to get a spinal tap and went through a lot. He ended up staying in the hospital on his eighth birthday. I think my mom learned from that though. Towards the end of Sophomore year, I was becoming dizzied than usual and my heart beat was fast and I could feel it through my entire body and I knew something just wasn't right so I stayed home for a day from school and took my heart rate every thirty minutes and it was a weird pattern so the next day she took me to the emergency room and I got my diagnosis. Dure shouldn't have waited as long as he did and trusted home-remedies as much as he did but i think his pride got the best of him.
Dure will not take his kids to the doctors until they find their cousin who was buried in the vineyard. He states that it is making them all sick, and that they must find him before he can let his kids rest. My mother has a family remedy for ear aches. She makes the remedy and puts it on a cotton ball and you are suppose to put it in your ear. It is supposed to help take the ache away, and help it unclog. It usually works, but when it's really severe you usually have to keep it in for a long time. If it doesn't work that is when we head to he doctors.
I'm not really sure why he is so adamant to not give his kids the care they need. Maybe he really believes that he knows best for his family and that he's going to be able to treat them. He is obviously ignorant to how unhealthy his family has become, but that doesn't stop him from continuing the same old methods, thinking they will work. His stubbornness seems like it could kill his family. I can't understand his thinking when he denies free care for his children. It is irresponsible and negligent of him to watch his family suffer and not do anything about it. Maybe he just really believes that their cousin is making them sick, but I still think he is neglecting them either way.
The only similarity that I could see between this story and the story of the deathless man was that the deathless man's uncle wouldn't allow him to die, and Dure's family's cousin won't let them become healthy by making them sick.
Dure does not want to take his kids to the doctor because he knows what is wrong with them. Even the kids know what is wrong with themselves and the rest of their family. That is why they continue to dig even when they are so sick. Dure taking his kids to the doctor would mean he doesn't believe what one of the people in the town told him was the problem. It would be going against his beliefs and such. Dure is certain in his mind that the cause of not only his kids' sickness but his and the rest of his family is the body of a cousin. The cousin was buried in the fields 12 years earlier. He became unhappy in the afterlife of where he was buried so started making the family really sick. They need to find the body and move it to a more appropriate resting place in order to be cured from the deathly sickness that has come over them.
I believe Dure is so adamant about not taking his kids to the doctor because he doesn't want to find out how sick they really are. I think that he believes that if he just pretends that they are all perfectly fine and normal then eventually they will actually be perfectly fine and normal over time. I think that he realizes that they are very sick but he thinks that he has them under control for the time being. He also needs his two sons to help him dig so they can get the job done much faster.
Ever since I could remember my mother would use an egg to remove bee stingers out of my skin, she learned this from her mother that learned this from her mother. Every time I have gotten stung by a bee she would open the egg and take the skin from the inside the egg and put it over my skin where the stinger was. She would then let it dry then peel off the egg skin, when she peeled it off the stinger came out painless so I would say it works pretty well.
My family still practices home remedies. Like for example, when we have the flu, we try a little gatorade and water, sips at a time , to see if we can hold it down. If we can then thats what we drink the rest of the time. The first thing we try to eat at saltines. If we can hold that down, then we try toast, and if we can hole that down, then noodles. Another thing for example, is when we have a super sore throat, my mom makes us green tea, with a little bit of honey, I think it makes my throat a lot better. I know one thing that my mom did when she was little, was that when she would have a stomach ache she would drink coca-cola syrup, and it help her every time. When we have fevers, we have to put on a cold rag on our forehead, and the back of our neck and change it about every 10 minutes to keep it nice and cool. If our fever was still rising, then we had to take a cold shower, and man did that stink. I think that all of the stuff we did helped, weather it was a mental thing, or physicaly.
I think that Dure believes that he should be able to care for his kids without the help of anyone else and that they can just tough it out until they somehow get better. It is also clear that he believes in some sort of weird superstitious way of live that includes dead relatives making their family sick if they don't like where they are buried. I also know people who think that doctors are just out to get their money and that they don't need professional help for their health. I think it is sad when people refuse to see doctors. Especially in the novel when it is Dure's own children who need help and are clearly in bad shape.
My family still believes in and practices many home remedies. One of my family's favorite is the cold washcloth when someone has a fever. You can always tell at my house if someone is sick because you can find their body covered in washcloths soaked with cold water. Another favorite is to turn on the shower and make it as hot as it can possibly get, close the bathroom door, and sit in the bathroom as the room fills with steam. This is suppose to help relieve a stuffy nose. The last home remedy I can think of is drinking the pop Vernors ginger ale if you have an upset stomach. For my family, these home remedies often seem to help cure many illnesses.
I think Dure isn't taking his kids to the doctor because he thinks the home remedies are helping his children more than a doctor can prescribe them. He thinks they can be healed through the home remedies and time. My family doesn't use home remedies, mainly because medicine is another option that works better. Sometimes when I have the flu I will drink gatorade or some other kind of juice, but that's about it.
I think it is sad how people rely exclusively on home remedies rather than trusting good modern medicine (where applicable). I'm trying to understand why they're digging for the body so adamantly – maybe the family thinks the ghost is cursing them with sickness?
I have mixed feeling about so called "natural remedies" and beliefs that spread like wildfires. For example, when parents refuse to take their children to hospitals or to the doctors, and rely on some $80 crystal, or the power of Christ to save their child. It breaks my heart to see innocent children, dying everyday of easy fixable afflictions due to the arrogance of their supervisors. Some common beliefs that are practiced by adults, which results in the impending death of their kid or others in most cases is, refusing to vaccinate their kids, Crystal Medicine, and the sole power of faith are some of the few beliefs based on pseudoscience that cause unnecessary suffering to children afflicted with easily curable diseases. Still, I am against some modern medicines, such as Oxycodone and morphine, as it can cause addictions that ruin lives.
The first moment Dure is introduced in this story, he seems like the type of man who is extremely prideful. He definitely doesn't want to hear anyone else's opinion other than his own, especially Natalia's. He seems to believe that he can take matters into his own hands. I believe he does see that his children and wife are very sick, including himself, but he thinks medicine will not work. He thinks thats a waste of time considering the only way the children will get better is if he finds his cousin's body. This so so far fetched that I don't blame Natalia from laughing at this a little bit. But upon realizing that their digging habits are for sure not for anything agricultural, it throws her off to wonder if this is really what they are doing.
I think this chapter may have a huge tie in with the deathless man. Gavo may be Dure's buried cousin that is "making everyone sick". Although a counter argument I thought of for this assumption is that from what I could tell, Gavo was a very down to earth guy(pun?). He never wanted revenge on the people who tried to kill him before, so why would he now? Is it possible that since his cousin betrayed him, this had other meaning to him? Dure also said that once that got him out of the ground that he would stop the widespread sickness. If this were any normal person, the body would be dead and unable to stop anything? But if its the deathless man, he is still alive underground, and could possibly cure the people.
The only home remedy I know of is for a cough that's particularly nasty. The remedy is hot lemonade and lots of honey. It works, I think, or maybe that's confirmation bias because every cough I had I got over but I suppose I never did a double blind study to know for sure. I also think that this man doesn't trust medicine for whatever reason and that's dangerous in my opinion. I pity the kids who had to live with a treatable cough. Their father seems like he doesn't want to accept help from others because it's his family but I don't really know why. Maybe it ties in to the culture of these Eastern European countries since they want to seem manly they don't accept help because they could be seen as weak.
My family utilizes many home remedies. We use ice on the back of our necks when we get bloody noses, to help stop the blood flow. We drink hot tea when we get a cold to help clear our sinuses. My family also has us do an epsom salt bath if our body aches. We have a lot of little remidies that seem to work pretty well for my family, but they doesn't mean they work for everyone. They are just little things we do, to try and keep ourselves healthy.
My family has a few home remedies that we still use. For a headache we lay down and put a bag of ice wrapped in a damp cloth on our forehead. It never fails to remove the headache. Another one being when we have a sore throat, we gargle salt water. I think Dure relies on home remedies because the human body should be able to take care of it's self. When in reality medicine is a more successful route to recovery.
My family shares many home remedies for simple ailments. For stomach aches, we like to make Coca tea, an herbal tea made with the leaves of a Coca plant. For chapped lips, we mix together sugar and olive oil to make a homemade lip scrub. We also use coconut oil for a multitude of things, especially for healing baths. By putting in coconut oil and epsom salt into a warm bath, they will help to relax you while drawing toxins out of your skin as well. I agree with home remedies, for many of them are simple and much cheaper than buying over-the-counter drugs and trips to the doctor.
My family has a few home remedies that they still use today and others that are just too weird to try. My mom's parents have a home remedy of taking a tablespoon of honey and tablespoon of whiskey if they’re sick, mainly for a sore throat and stuffy nose/common cold. Now, my mom makes what she calls a hot toddy, its a tablespoon of honey and whiskey mixed in a cup of hot tea. She takes it for sore throats and common colds. The honey helps soothe the throat, the whiskey helps you fall asleep and the tea helps clear up your nose. My dad tells me often that his parents told him that you can have someone pee in your ear to get rid of an earache… I’m not testing that theory out. Whenever anyone in my family gets sick my mom has us eat crackers and drink Vernors. I’m not sure how the two help to make you feel better but it does.
Dure and his family are unfortunately stuck in the cycle of poverty. Dure has no money to pay for medicine for his family. However, when Natalia offers him treatment at the orphanage clinic he puts down the orphans. Dure will not accept charity out of pride but also establishes that he is socially superior to at least orphans. I also think that Dure honestly believes that a ghost is causing the illness. With this logic, why seek medical attention when time could be spent tying to find the root of problem. I applaud Natalia's passion and persistence in her wish to care for the children. However, I am worried that her lack of experience in a position such as Dure's will not allow her to persuade him easily if at all
Home remedies are an interesting topic in my household. My mom, being the nurse practitioner she is, has absolutely no belief in home remedies since medication is scientifically what works. I personally believe the same thing, but I have some family members who believe in the power of home remedies and natural alternatives so much that they use no pharmaceuticals. While some of this I could believe, such as tea to calm someone and potentially lower stress, anxiety, or blood pressure, but things like garlic have no chance of curing bacterial infections since an antibiotic is the only cure. I have a cousin who believes that crystals - amethyst, quartz, etc - have healing properties, and can cure ailments ranging from headaches to heart conditions. I personally see this as a little ridiculous (come on, waving a rock around and expecting a headache to go away makes no sense), but she has the right to own her beliefs. I could understand if someone preferred trying alternatives to pharmaceuticals if they overcame an addiction and don't want to have any opportunity to encounter addictive pharmaceuticals in the future, but other than that I think people should trust the science and feel safe taking medications that are proven to work in the cases of over the counter drugs and antibiotics.
Just like Josh Reitz has, we also have aloe in our household. And Band-aids. Some of my mom's family (cough cough my uncle Jeff), when they're (Jeff) out hunting, in place of band aids, bring gasoline and duct tape for medicine. I was dropped on my head during my baptism, but my Uncle Jeff is weird. That last fact is true. Yo- and Emily Grim's got a point. The little window I'm writing this comment in is only filling up a quarter of my screen, and I got to see the whole "waving rocks is ridiculous but you do you" sensical sense Emily G. just made sense of. I personally just tell myself to feel better, and then let the time and placebo usually do the work for me. For example, I once inhaled to much wood sealant, and I just kinda rid that train with my brain. Or, for example, if you work at a coal furnace for too long in one day, you wake up with nerve poisoning. That happened to a friend of mine once, and he couldn't get up to go to the doctors from some time.
I believe Dure doesn't take his kids to the doctor because of pride, and confidence. If he were to take his kids to the doctor, he would be admitting his home remedies were not enough and he would need outside help. I don't think he wants to do this because he is proud of the family he has provided for. My family doesn't have any home remedies but I do believe they can help in ways. If you believe something helps you feel better, whether there is any actual health benefit or not, believing that you are getting better can trigger actual feelings of being better and healthier.
Home remedies are a staple in my house. Although we are capable and fortunate enough to be able to go to a Doctor, if we don't have to go, we try not to visit the hospital. As a kid I always thought many of these techniques were superstitious in a sense, but they always seemed to work. Whenever a family member was sick, sliced garlic was placed around the house while a large cut onion was placed in the infected's room. it was said to draw the illness out of your body and out of the air. The black specs that would begin to appear on the sliced plants were said to be the illness being trapped on its' outer layer. Honey was another huge necessity in my house. A spoonful of honey could soothe any sore throat or rugged cough. My mother was like our personal Mary Poppins! Also, adding honey to a hot cup of tea was supposed to ease stomach illnesses as well. Heated assortments of herbs and spices within a bag was also the perfect way to ease a stomach ache. A heated bag of this concoction placed on your stomach would always put your aching body at ease. Although I don't know if these things were just psychological or just nature's remedies, they always worked and still do to this day. I don't know how I would've survived 17 years without them.
Dure acts out of pride, keeping his kids from a doctor even though they are clearly sick. His stubbornness reminds me of the resistance of the deathless man to Natalia's grandfather's help. Both defy the doctors' attempts to aid them, even as they or their families suffer. However, while Gavo did not face death, Dure and his family do. I think it's interesting that Dure acts like an immortal man when suffering and death is clearly a reality for himself and his family.
My aunt uses home remedies often. She uses a lot of essential oils, lemon to clear noses, things like that. I think that they work to an extent, and natural remedies can be good for a lot of things, but I also think that at a certain point you have to let more advanced medicines that have been created to more directly treat something do their work. In my house, whenever someone gets a canker sore we are told to gargle with salt water. I don't necessarily think that it is pride that keeps Dure from taking his kids to a doctor. I think more than that he genuinely and wholeheartedly believes in what he's always been taught. These are his beliefs, and in times when his family is threatened he clings to them because they're what he knows best. He genuinely thinks that he caused this epidemic and that he has to fix it himself.
My family has a couple of goofy and weird home remedies. They're really odd and I always feel rather dumb while doing them, though they do work. We have two for hiccups. One of them is to take a spoonful of sugar, in which the texture supposedly calms the throat and diaphragm. I'm not sure if that's the technical solution, but it works every time. The other remedy is to drink a glass of water with a paper towel folded over the edge. I have no clue to how that solves it, but regardless, it does.
I believe that Dure is unwilling to accept any form of modern medicine for his children because in his heart he believes that the root of the sickness is caused by his cousin's distaste with his burial place. H doesn't think normal medicine will help. Dure thinks that time away from searching for the bones is time wasted. He has also instilled this in the children because when asked if one of them would like to go to the doctor, the boy keep son digging. A home remedy that my family uses still is drinking Vernor's for a sore throat.
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