Gifts To The Dark Gods, analytical essay

Analytical essay – Gifts To The Dark Gods. Many people in this century are suffering from a mental disease, and kleptomania is one of these. Kleptomania is not just a mental illness; it is an obsession that can take control of you if you allow it to. Kleptomania is not just wanting to steal – it is having a need to steal. It is an illness that many do not know exists, but the short story Gifts To The Dark Gods by Mary McCluskey from 2010 raises awareness of this topic. The main character, Helen, has developed kleptomania because of the emptiness she feels with her children being off to college, her husband working all day and her life with no job and no friends. Helen is married to Daniel, and it can be said that they are living in an unhealthy marriage. Daniel works a lot, and therefore he is away for a lot of hours every day, and Helen is left by herself with no job or friends. When Daniel and Halen met, she was taking a course in literature and she was passionate about this, but later on when the children moved out, Daniel told her to stop working: “We can afford it, sweetheart. Do charity work or something. No need for you to stress out in advertising.” (Page 4, lines 77-78). This quote makes Daniel seem like a man who wants to be looked at as the wealthy man he is, and it seems like he does not only want Helen as his loving wife, but as his trophy. That Daniel wants Helen as his trophy wife is also seen clearly when he wants her to participate in one of his business dinners. Helen is late because of her illness, and when she arrives, he is not pleased: “Daniel regards her with some disapproval.” (Page 5, line 126). Helen blames it on the traffic, and it is clear that Daniel does not know about her illness, and especially that he does not know how serious the illness is. Helen is doing charity work as her husband told her to, but she is not telling him about it. She does not tell him about her illness because she does not think that he would understand why she is helping these problem youngsters. This also makes it clear that their marriage is not healthy, because they do not share the things in their life, and because it almost seems as if she is afraid of telling him about the charity work. Daniel knows that she is doing some charity work, but she does not tell him about the people she is working with. Helen ends up feeling a sort of emptiness in her life, with her husband working all of the time and not understanding her: “She can’t remember exactly when it began. It was soon after Chloe and Nick left for 75 university, when she quit her job at the advertising company.” (Page 3, lines 74-75). The emptiness she is feeling might be the reason for the kleptomania. It might be said that Helen tries to fill out this emptiness by shoplifting two items per week. The shoplifting does not make Helen happy – it is an obsession. It seems like Helen is suffering from obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD): “She is sweating. Her blouse is sticking to her back and she can feel her hair damp, curling against her neck. Her heart is starting to pound, a hard nauseating pounding. Panic attacks, her therapist, Martha Kim, calls them.” (Page 5, lines 147-150). She gets these panic attacks when she is not able to shoplift two items in a week. If it is not because Helen is suffering from OCD, you could assume that she does it to get her husband’s attention, but with Helen, that is not the case. When the manager at the store wants to call Daniel, Helen seems very nervous about the situation, and it seems like she knows that she is in trouble if Daniel finds out about her kleptomania. In the end of the story, Helen realizes that she has a problem. Barbara, a wife of one of Daniel’s clients catches Helen stealing from her, and ends up implying to Daniel that his wife has a problem, but it seems hard for Daniel to understand this, maybe because he is not aware of kleptomania or maybe because he thinks that he knows everything about his wife. Helen realizes that she has a problem when she steals the vase with the flowers from the restaurant and ends up revealing herself to Daniel. In the end, everything seems to fall into place, Helen admits her loneliness and her problems, and considers calling Barbara because she could be a friend. The story ends with Helen saying “I’ll be fine”, which is her admitting that she has a problem, and that she is willing to work on solving it and getting rid of the disease. The story has a third person narrator with a limited point of view, which lies with the main character, Helen. The narrator has a limited point of view and he knows what Helen is thinking: “ All she can think is that it is two minutes to three and she has only the lipstick”(Page 7, line 119). The language is rather formal but not high class. The narrator describes the actions, which we can see in the first line: “The tap of her shoulder freezes her”. The narrator also gives the reader an impression of what Helen is thinking through the descriptions of her actions: “Helen takes a breath, listens, every nerve ending on a red alert”(Page 6, line 172). Here, the narrator does tell the reader that Helen is nervous, and it is clear that she is. The short story “Gifts to the Dark Gods” is the story of Helen living with the mental disease OCD. She steals items and uses the Dark Gods as an excuse to keep stealing. Because of Helen’s rather boring life, with her husband thinking more of her as a trophy than as his wife, she ends up feeling lonely and feeling as if something in her life is missing. She tries to fill out the emptiness by shoplifting. But in the end she comes to her senses, admits to herself that she has a problem, considers getting help and is willing to get better.