Analysis Of Frrancine Cournos's 'City Of One: A Memoir'

Humans and need love and attachments like we need water and air. As we move throughout our lives from babies to adults attachments, have essential roles to play from making sure our biological needs are met by providing us with comfort, trust, and a sense of interconnectedness. Since attachments are such an integral and emotional part of our lives, it makes sense why we are separated from or lose people we are attached to it can be such an excruciating experience. For children losing attachment figures can be an especially scaring experience leaving wounds that may last into adulthood and well beyond. Such was the case for a woman named Francine Cournos, author of City of One: A Memoir. In her book, Cournos describes her growing up years, which was filled with loss of many she loved, and describes the pain and struggles these and other experiences

Throughout the City of One Cournos clearly illustrates how her history of having her attachment figures disappear or seemingly abandoned her made future relationships difficult. In rich and painful description Cournos describes the emotional walls she had built around herself and the anxiety she faced in new relationships. For instance, she describes the detachment and numbness she felt during her first marriage that ended in divorce which is summed up in the following quote, “By the time medical school ended we’d agreed to call it quits. I guess I should have married a man instead of a role, but I was too detached to know the difference” (Counous, 2006, p. 165). When she married her second husband, which turned into a healthy relationship, she describes her intense intermixing of both happiness but also fears. When her daughter is born she details her ecstasy but also her gut-wrenching fear that she will be separated from this little one she is attached to as