The focal point of this paper is to prepare a reflection of two short stories, “Mirror Image” by Lena Coakley and “A secret lost in the water” by Roch Carrier, translated by Sheila Fischman from French. The paper would look into the parameter of different aspects of the stories and compare the two, particularly on the theme of self-discovery. However, it should be noted that as the latter is a translation, therefore, the higher emphasis would be given to the narratives of the texts.
The story “A secret lost in the water” is so touching that it speaks itself without any explanation. It has a touch of magic realism with all its references of ancient knowledge of finding water but it is at the same time extremely realistic and present-day with the underlying fact that with the growth of technological development and economy induced specialization it is obvious in this day that fathers are unable to pass their knowledge to their sons. It is a painful inference of generation gap and intellectual loss and loneliness that the narrator has portrayed with a minimum of emotion involved. The emotions and pains are present between the lines of the story. These elements hardly surface and overflow the mode of narration in the story.
It is through such a clear and distinct manner the writer helps the reader to understand the nature of the self-discovery of a person who left the path of his father. The self-discovery in this case is the self-realization that one must honor the old ways of life. However, this idea was provided to the narrator by an old man who knew the father of the narrator and while he was telling the story of how his sons left the way of farming and went to the city, the narrator understood that it applies to him too. The narrator did not learn the ways and knowledge of his father and everything his father tried to teach him was lost over time. He understood that this was ultimately a loss of knowledge.
On the other hand, the second story, “Mirror Image”, is about Alice who had undergone a total brain transplant and finds herself in a two-year-older completely different body. She survived an accident and then a difficult operation and the story focuses on Alice’s dilemma of finding her identity within her new body. The narrative is complex and presents the situation in a similarly complex and investigative manner. The first part of the story even illustrates an element of suspense while revealing the actual problem of the characters.
The elements of self-discovery in this story come through the means of physical and psychological adaptations that the main character, Alice, needs to go through in order to adjust her brain to a new body. This new body of Alice is completely different and her brain is finding it difficult to adapt. However, through painful medical processes, Alice makes it possible to adapt to this new body and started liking it too. Nevertheless, the second part of the self-discovery was the time she found it was more difficult to place herself in the social context. The body in which her brain was placed belonged to a girl whose mother claimed Alice to be her daughter. Alice thus discovered that emotion is more powerful than science and relations mattered more than legal clauses.
Thus, in the conclusion, it can well be stated that the aspect of self-discovery in the two stories looks at the same context from two different viewpoints. The story fundamentally differs in the context of perspectives but remains identical and similarly attached while the subject is taken into account. Thus, it is seen that despite the initial differences in approach and narratives the two stories remain fundamentally the same in the greater context of the pains related to civilization and its developments which are realized through self-realization and self-discovery.