No Safe Places Analysis

The only certain thing in life is that it will end one day. Death is inevitable and it often affects everyone involved with overwhelming emotions of grief or guilt. Ironically, death is thrown in our faces almost every day – we hear about it on the news and we see it regularly in the media. For example, the film No Safe Place clearly depicts six families that were forever changed due to acts of terrorism. Michal Ganon and her mother, in particular, have experienced plenty of the concepts that surround death, such as elements of total pain, grief reactions, and survivor’s guilt. Per lecture, Dame Cicely Saunders defined the concept of total pain as the suffering that encompasses all of a person 's physical, psychological, social, spiritual, and emotional struggles. Michal Ganon has encountered all five types of pain. Michal experienced the physical pain first; she had both of her legs blown off when a car bomb exploded. She was in pain to the extent that she became suicidal. This is when her emotional pain becomes apparent. She actually asked to be killed while in the ICU. At this time, she did not know that her best friend, Shoshona, was killed in the same attack that she survived. The realization that her best friend was gone

One common reaction to the loss of a loved one is by either holding onto possessions of the deceased for remembrance, or by discarding every reminder of the deceased. This was shown in the film No Safe Place when Michal’s mother, Vivian, pulled open the drawers to reveal a collection of Michal’s old shoes, in which she kept. Although Michal is not deceased, she no longer had use for her shoes because both of her legs were now gone. Vivian uses Michal’s shoes as a linking object. Linking objects assist the mourner in maintaining a healthy bond of remembrance (Text 333). The shoes help Vivian cope with her daughters unexpected life change, which seems to affect her more than her