Personality Essay, Research Paper

An persons experiences, yesteryear and present supply a important footing for the type of individual they will go. Relationships that are established during childhood and adolescence are of import for the defining of person & # 8217 ; s personality, as most personality development occurs in the early phases of life. Experiences that person must cover with in the present sense besides contributes to their personality. Dominick Birdsey in Wally Lambs novel I Know This Much Is True, suffered his full life sing every emotion humanly possible in his current stretch of 40 five old ages. The sad and nerve-racking episodes of his life began to take their toll directing Dominick began to turn into a depression and inquiry his ground for life.

Dominick Birdsey, his twin brother Thomas, his female parent Connie, and stepfather Ray, & # 8220 ; Ray is non our existent male parent. We don & # 8217 ; Ts know who our existent male parent is. I don & # 8217 ; t even cognize if Ma knows. & # 8221 ; ( 91 ) live in Connecticut. Dominick and Thomas had to organize an confederation to stand up to Ray, as he had a inclination to utilize his belt instead than words to penalize. He was highly rigorous, clearly in charge of the house, and showed small or no emotion, non even towards his married woman. As a kid of about eight old ages old, Ray has Dominick and his brother believing that portion of being a adult male is non demoing emotion, so the two grow up every bit small boys experiencing really lonely, ensuing in a alone maturity. The manner Dominick remembers his childhood is experiencing obligated to often deliver his brother from Ray & # 8217 ; s maltreatment. Ray was ever much harder on Thomas as he felt he was a mama & # 8217 ; s male child and had to be toughened up. & # 8220 ; These yearss they called Ray & # 8217 ; s sort of & # 8216 ; toughening up & # 8217 ; child abuse. & # 8221 ; ( 63 ) Dominick in secret enjoyed this particular intervention to an extent, but besides felt bad for the manner his twin was being invariably treated. Even though Dominick was non a direct mark of Rays maltreatment, he was still subjected to it, and as a kid, exposure to force instills fear and what go distilled choler in an grownup which can potentially ensue in violent motivations. However, past experiences can be forgotten, and people are able to travel on, whereas present issues must be faced on a day-to-day footing and be continually dealt with. In the short term, it is present twenty-four hours experiences that cause people to respond to certain fortunes. Childs are excessively guiltless to be destructive, but an grownup covering with hard issues may happen a unsavory manner to expose emotion.

Dominick and Thomas were loved by their female parent but because of her unpleasant childhood, she had insecurities of her ain, which contributed to her inactive nature, therefore leting Ray to do all her determinations and order her about as he pleased. As a kid, Connie was repeatedly called ugly by her male parent, as she was born with a cleft lip. She developed a nervous stance concealing her cleft lip with her right fist. Contradictory to her childhood, she grew up to be a fantastic loving female parent to her two boies and an obedient married woman ( possibly non as going a trait ) , however, she was a good female parent and a devout Catholic.

When it was clip for the two male childs to come in College, they had to travel off from place and reside in residence halls. Dominick was looking frontward to being on his ain, while Thomas was scared to decease. Thomas had in secret requested that he and Dominick portion a residence hall room after Dominick made it absolutely clear that he was more than dying to interrupt away from his other half. & # 8220 ; I wasn & # 8217 ; t traveling to populate with him either? I wasn & # 8217 ; t traveling to keep his manus or walk him to the library? & # 8221 ; ( 321 ) When Dominick arrived at the residence hall to detect his new roomie was his brother, he was ashen. His whole life, he felt he had to protect his brother, non merely organize Ray, but subsequently from the toughs in high school, and from the remarks that came from under the breaths of colleagues at their summer occupation. & # 8220 ; Dominick, could you delight talk to Dell? Get him to halt naming me *censored*less? & # 8221 ; ( 324 ) Thomas was teased to no terminal, but ne’er in the presence of his brother Dominick.

Dominick married his first love and lover, Dessa. He was really much in love with her and she was with him. The two tried unsuccessfully many times to hold a babe, before they were successful. Their babe was born healthy but later died of cot decease. & # 8220 ; She? she died. Crib decease. She was three hebdomads old. & # 8221 ; ( 247 ) Dessa became overpoweringly overwrought and intolerable to populate with. She suggested a divorce, & # 8220 ; I have to take a breath Dominick. You suck all the O out of the room. & # 8221 ; ( 320 ) on the evidences that Dominick was unsupportive after the decease of the babe. Dominick was merely every bit disquieted as Dessa was, but, reflecting back from his childhood and Ray & # 8217 ; s words, portion of being a adult male was non demoing emotion. Dessa decided that Dominick ne’er loved the babe to get down with, so he couldn & # 8217 ; t perchance love her. After the divorce, out of choler, or out of unhappiness, Dominick decided to in secret acquire a vasectomy.

The fortunes that seem to impact Dominick the most deeply is the period during which Thomas began to alter. Thomas became uninterested in school. He ne’er studied or attended talks, began to go paranoid, experiencing that he was ever being watched. Thomas besides began to lose a important sum of weight. & # 8220 ; Is it drugs, Dominick? Is that why he lost all that weight? & # 8221 ; ( 251 ) At first, Dominick thought that Thomas was merely distracted because of the emphasis of traveling off from place. & # 8220 ; Sometimes he & # 8217 ; s lose path of what he was making, or float off into a fog somewhere. & # 8221 ; ( 250 ) Finally, it was discovered & # 8220 ; ? by so, Thomas & # 8217 ; unwellness had already started chat uping with him? nine months subsequently there & # 8217 ; d be no avoiding it: March of 1970 was when Thomas & # 8217 ; encephalon dropped to his knees. & # 8221 ; ( 50 ) that Thomas & # 8217 ; status was in fact schizophrenic disorder. Thomas was diagnosed at the age of 21 after he was discovered sitting in his room with a cap constructed of tin foil on his caput to forestall people from reading his head. Thomas was admitted to the minimum security establishment, Settle, and was released two old ages subsequently as medicine was maintaining his disease what the physicians claimed to be under control. & # 8220 ; I went down to see Thomas and I found him sitting at that place paralyzed and glassy-eyed, his lingua lodging out of his oral cavity, his shirt forepart sopping with drool. & # 8221 ; ( 50 ) A few times Dominick had intuitions that the physicians merely increased his dosage of medical specialty so that they did non hold to cover with him. Upon his release, Thomas stationed himself in the public library and cut off his right manus as a forfeit to God. During his amputation, he chanted, & # 8220 ; and if thy right oculus offend thee, tweak it out from thee, and if thy right manus offend thee, cut if away and cast it from thee. & # 8221 ; ( 5 ) Thomas was admitted to a maximal security establishment, Hatch Forensic Institute, wh

ere Dominick frights for his brothers safety as he has been informed that a few of the patients have been raped and there is an eruption of the HIV virus in the infirmary. Because of Thomas’ act of self-mutialiation, he has no pick and must stay institutionalised as he is a menace to himself, “He’s potentially violent, ” ( 48 ) and perchance to others. Again, Dominick feels that he is incapacitated as he is cognizant his brother may be in danger, but knows he can non make anything to assist. Thomas’ status worsens as he remains in the establishment. At that clip, Dominick was a instructor at a high school, but had to set his calling on what was ( supposed to be ) a impermanent clasp. The emphasis he was caused by his brothers admittance caused him to interrupt down in cryings while learning one of his categories. “I ne’er went back to learning either. I couldn’t. How can you shout in forepart of a clump of adolescents one hebdomad and travel back the following? ” ( 222 ) Dominick even sacrifices his calling for his brother Thomas.

Dominick is in another relationship after his divorce of 16 old ages with Dessa. He is populating with a younger beautiful adult female named Joy. After falling two narratives while housepainting, Joy visits Dominick in the infirmary with the fantastic intelligence refering her gestation. Dominick knows that Joy was unfaithful as the babe could non perchance be his as he underwent a vasectomy. Dominick tells Joy of his operation and she admits to rip offing on him with another adult male. Dominick was cruelly lied to about an issue that was already delicate to him and as he lays in his infirmary bed, he sinks into a depression and existences to oppugn his ground for life. & # 8220 ; Just allow me lie here and think & # 8211 ; drama with the thought of dying. & # 8221 ; ( 493 ) At the tallness of Dominicks depression, after larning that Joy allowed her other lover ticker Dominick and her consummate, and after his female parents decease, after larning his measure father Ray had sphacelus and had to hold portion of his leg removed, after recognizing that he was still in love with Dessa and after remembering his childhood & # 8211 ; which was supossed to be a clip of happy memories, Dominick visualizes his self-destruction. & # 8220 ; They & # 8217 ; d direct me place with analgesics, right? I could take them all at one time with a bottle of? what did I have in the house anyhow? thwart? Booze and pills, that would make it. & # 8221 ; ( 524 )

With Dominicks yesteryear and nowadays combined, his life makes for an unhappy 1. Since he was a kid he had no sense of control. & # 8220 ; When you & # 8217 ; re the sane brother of a schitzophrenic indistinguishable twin, and you & # 8217 ; re into endurance of the fittest and being your brothers keeper? state adieu to kip and hello to the center of the night. & # 8221 ; ( 347 ) He has endured failed relationships, the decease of his kid, holding to get by with the knowing that his brother crisis with schizophrenic disorder was out of his control and for the first clip he was unable to protect him ; protecting Thomas was an thought which he had grown comfy with every bit inconvenient as it was. Dominick besides had no control over his female parent & # 8217 ; s decease as she died from chest malignant neoplastic disease and in utmost hurting.

Through therapy, Dominick realizes that there is plentifulness for him to populate for. He finds interior peace by larning more about himself and by sharing his ideas and frights. Dayss before his female parents decease, she had given Dominick her male parents autobiography. It was written in Italian ( as he had emigrated from Sicily in 1901 ) and had to be translated. Dominick finally learns how unfairly his female parent was treated and additions a greater regard for her. Her male parent called the shootings and she was used to being told what to make, which explains her obeisance and demand or entry for an aggressive spouse. All her life she was told she was inferior and she had believed it. It does non look just to Dominick that she had to digest a life of hurting and so decease in hurting. He does non understand why bad things happen to good people.

After old ages of life in the maximal security establishment, Thomas is placed back in the minimal security establishment temporarily and so re-released. The universe he is set into is non a familiar one and he decides to stop his life on the border of the forests where Ray, he and Dominick spent a fishing weekend in 1962 as kids. Ironically, Thomas killed himself in the same topographic point where he recalls happening a dead squirrel which appeared to hold slightly of an impact on his life.

& # 8220 ; One thing I remember about that trip was this dead squirrel that person had trapped inside a firebox. They & # 8217 ; d put a clump of stones on top to maintain him trapped in at that place. He was all huddled up in a corner, but you could state he & # 8217 ; d gone mental seeking to acquire out. There was crusted black blood around his oral cavity and he stank and bugs had eaten out his eyes. Ray lifted him out with a stick and flung him. He didn & # 8217 ; t set down all the manner in the forests: he landed right on the border. I wanted to bury him and hold a funeral, but Ray told me to halt the effeminate material. All the clip we were at that place, you could see that dead squirrel right out in field sight. Whenever anyone mentions New Hampshire, that squirrel is ever what I think of. I bet I & # 8217 ; ve thought about that squirrel a million times. & # 8221 ; ( 159 )

To Ray, a dead squirrel was fiddling, but to Thomas it had a big adequate impact on his life to desire to travel back to that topographic point and stop his province of anguish. Many people do non recognize the impact that some events have on a kid & # 8217 ; s development.

As Dominick develops a greater regard for relationships, he decides he should seek to set up a positive relationship with Ray. Ray, in his older age is no longer the after part and hostile male parent that he used to be. He welcomes Dominick with unfastened weaponries back into his life and decides to do up for lost clip. After old ages and old ages, virtually all of Dominick & # 8217 ; s life until present, what was one time a bad relationship where regard was enforced by fright, the two work forces find felicity in their new male parent and boy relationship. After Thomas and Ma are gone, the two work forces realize that all they have is each other. Ray regrets non showing love towards both his married woman and his boies and vows to turn old with Dominick and be the best male parent he knows how to be for the balance of his life.

Dominick Birdsey was clearly the stronger twin. All his life, from a kid to a in-between aged adult male, he had to take attention of person, viz. his brother Thomas. It is really hard to be invariably giving and acquiring nil in return as such was the instance with Dominick. Finally, to be showed love by Ray, ( the one adult male who Dominick thought was incapable of love ) Dominick accomplished a sense of remainder and colony. Possibly the ground why Dominick was so strong was because he had to be, as people were dependent on him. His childhood and his mundane conflicts made him the individual that he thought he would ne’er go. He was eventually in control of his life.