Themes In Insignificant Gestures

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Essay: Insignificant Gestures
The story is about a man, who is thinking back on his younger days in Africa. How he returned home with pain, regret and disgust after witnessing the cruelty of death, pain and suffering, because he blames himself for the death of a friend of his and is consumed by guilt.

The story I told in the narrator’s point of view and starts with the narrator being in the present, and then he thinks back on the past, where he was in Africa. Lastly, in the story, he is back to the present where he meets his new assistance, who remind him of Cecil. When he thinks about the past, he describes himself to be a successfully doctor at a young age, but at the same time he seem to be a naïve young man, who easy trusted. He was mentally …show more content…

But after she felt her duty to protect me from cockroaches. Every day she sought them out, stamped on dozens with her strong bare feet and swept the crushed bodies onto the dust outside. The carnage appalled me, but I was secretly touched. (Page 2, line 66-70).
He appreciate her killing and discarding the disgusting insects, but for her, who is used to them, it is only an insignificant gesture.

In the end of the story where he is back in his own time, he is reminded of Cecil by the African nurse, since the nurse save him from a cockroach, just like Cecil did before. After her insignificant gesture of saving him, he can finally find closure on his traumas thanks to her and let go of the guilt to start a new chapter in his life.
Beginnings start like this, with insignificant gestures. (Page 5, line 159).
The insignificant gestures are the most significant gestures of them all, it is those you do not notice but at the same time cannot live without. Even though they do not always lead to a happy ending, they still makes you feel special. It is through them the narrator developed a friendship but also guilt, but finds closure on the guilt through another insignificant

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