Perseverance And Adaptation In Joy Williams Taking Care

In Joy Williams’ Taking Care, a preacher only identified as Jones is placed in a position of great responsibility following his wife’s hospitalization with an apparent cancer diagnosis, when his troubled and rebellious daughter leaves him as the caregiver to her abandoned child and dog. Through the course of the narrative, Jones struggles to adapt under the weight of his duties to his dying wife, infant granddaughter, and congregation. Interestingly enough, though the story may be deemed a narrative, Williams's concern is not so much with telling a story from which to derive some form of moral or understanding as it is to reveal the character of Jones and what he represents. It is from understanding Jones that the reader is able to take away the values of perseverance in times of extraordinary hardship and the adaptation to changes in one’s life.

Before one can discuss how Williams makes Jones’s perseverance and adaptation to change apparent, one must first examine how she focuses the narrative on Jones rather than the surface level story being told. Williams achieves her focus in a variety of ways. Firstly, instead of making the story smooth flowing like most narratives with transitions, Williams uses abrupt scene changes and …show more content…
Through the course of the story, many examples exist to show this adaptation. In the face of his wife’s diagnosis Jones continues to go through the motions of his daily life. He visits his wife, discusses her treatment, and continues to the everyday obligations of his church. In the absence of his wife he adapts and performs the chores that she would normally do. This continues even after he is left with the obligation of caring for his infant granddaughter, taking on the role of both father and mother. We see that he performs every need that the child requires, feeding, changing,

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Perseverance And Adaptation In Joy Williams Taking Care

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