Carol

by Vanviel Mak

Words Checked: 1540

Words in Oxford 3000: 94%

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Contents

About the Author....P. 3

Synopsis………P. 4

Chapter I ……….P. 5

Chapter II …… P. 7

Chapter III …… P. 11

Chapter IV …… P. 15

Chapter V …… P. 20

Chapter VI …… P. 22

Chapter VII…….P. 24

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About the Author

Vanviel Mak, who was born in June, 1990,

had written this book in 2008.

She is a student of Wenzao Ursuline

College of Languages.

This is an assignment of her English

writing class.

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Synopsis

This is a tragedy telling about the conflict of religion in a family.

Carol was a ten-years-old girl. Carol’s mother was always weak. Her family had tried any ways to make her healthy. Then they met a missioner inviting them to church and believed in god after her mother conquered an incurable disease. Carol’s parents hoped Carol could go to the church and become a Christian, too, but Carol thought they were so ridiculous and became an anti-Christ.

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Chapter I

It was an afternoon with bright sun

and no clouds. Under the sunshine, there

was a grave that has been covered with

dust and hidden behind weeds which cis

difficult to be pushed aside. The woman

in that tarnished photo was looking even

fainter. Carol, who dressed in black as

usual, put a bouquet of chrysanthemums

on her mother’s grave. No clouds, no

birds, everything was clear in silence.

“Before, I had been always angry

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about you. Now, you are quiet, but I can

not guess what you are thinking. I

wonder if you are still sensible.” Carol

thought, “You may now be in a place

called heaven, but if you are there, I will

say that is ridiculous. What have you

done during the empty ages except living

with your own thinking and talking with

your own god?”

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Chapter II

It was not the first time Carol’s

mother complaint about doctors. “I

know I am sick. How can you tell those

smart-ass doctors that this is all because of

my neurosis?” Carol’s father put down

his newspaper a little bit, looking at his

wife and said, “Honey, they are

professional doctors. If they said you’re

all right, then you’re fine! You just need

more rest and forget about the pain.”

“I have always rested at home!

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People said that I’m idle because I didn’t

do housework, but even I have rested a lot,

I’m still sick!” Carol’s mother yelled

angrily to her husband.

‘Then do some work! Do some

excercise that will make you better.

Don't’ just lie on the bed and keep

thinking you’re ill.” “But I am ill,” she

emphasized. ‘Working will just make me

tired and even weak!’

‘All right,’ Carol’s dad did not want to

continue this argument, so he suggested

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her to go to another doctor next time.’

Carol’s mother visited doctors like

shopping. Her room was full of

medicine but some were already over-due

and hadn’t been taken. She visited many

doctors because she could trust none of

them, but she had no idea about her illness

either.

To some degree, she also loved to buy

luxuries. It cost a lot but that was what

Carol’s father needs to pay after arguing

with her. Those glittering jelwery of

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which its beauty will last for long could

always comfort her mind. She cared

about her beauty a lot that she was so

afraid the illness can simply deprive of

her beauty.

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Chapter III

One day, she returned to the jewelry

shop.

‘The shop keeper said that I should go

to church and get to know god,’ she said

to her husband.

‘For what?’ Carol’s father said while

he was reading the newspaper again.

Although he was a white-collar worker

who earn a stable income and never tried

to put his money in stock market, he just

thought this is the most important things.

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‘For my diseases, because you doctors

can do nothing.’

‘It’s up to you.’ As a doctor, Carol’s

father never believed in that kind of thing,

but there was no need to start another

argument.

‘…She will take us there this

weekend.’

‘Do I need to go, too?’

‘You’d better,’ she said at her husband,

and ‘then sleeping in the house!’

Carol’s mother became a Christian

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since then. She prayed all the time,

putting all of her hopes in god. She said

affirmatively, ‘A Christian is different

from a Buddhist, in that the latter believes

that the more times they recite the

scriptures, they will be forgiven and sent

to heaven. ’

‘Then why do you pray all the time

and force us to join you?’ Carol asked,

putting away her journal.

‘Because I’m devout, and God will

hear me.’

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‘Do you need to speak so many times

to him in order for him to finally hear

you?’

‘No. He always listens to me.’

‘Has he replied once?’

‘No. But he is listening to me and

will do something.’

‘Like what?’

‘We don’t know. We are humans.’

‘Oh, then you don’t know that he

probably thinks you are very annoying…’

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Chapter IV

At first, when she became a Christian,

many brothers and sisters from the church

came to their house every night to pray for

her. But after few months, none of

them came because Carol’s mother

became fed up of with them. They

sometimes persuaded Carol’s mother to go

outside and do exercise while coming to

her house or talking on the phone.

‘They don't understand how I have

been suffering,’ she said, ‘but God knows.’

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Therefore, she was doing church shopping

again. She could not stay in a church for

over three months since too many people

will care about her and interfere with her

life.

Carol’s father had been forced by his

wife to pray every day with her. Carol

did not know when he became a Christian ,

too. She found once when her father

asked her to pray for her mother.

Carol felt empty, as if she were losing

something. Before, she used to agree

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with her father when talking about her

mother’s unjustifiable arguments. She

thought there was a tacit understanding.

When her father prayed with her mother,

she thought he was just acting, and she

always laughs at them. She sometimes

despised her father since he was so afraid

of his wife as he had better follow all that

his wife said because he had never won an

argument.

She thought her father was only a

spineless intellectual. She could not

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believe that her father had become a

Christian. She does not know when he

became blind in faith and believed in such

an old tale.

The most unacceptable is when a

preacher talks about Jesus’ miracle.

‘Every religion had some strange tales.

It could be a simple coincidence, or

something else.’ When the preacher

claimed that Christian miracles are done

by god and the others are Satan’s power,

Carol feels even ridiculous. ‘It is

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preposterous to think that you can even

make up this story to justify yourselves.’

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Chapter V

The disease was cured. Carol is not

sure whether it was a miracle or her

mother’s imagination. She believed that

there was no problem with her mother’s

health from the beginning to the end. If

there was, those problem must be

psychological.

She pretended to be sick, and her

husband has been duded. She could

successfully get anything she wanted by

using her husband’s commiseration. In

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Carol’s mind, her mother was a

formidable woman who could always get

what she wanted in the end of the play.

“What a plot.”

Carol felt like that her mother was no

differences than tricksters.

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Chapter VI

However, the miracle did not last long.

After six years, her mother died from

familial heart disease.

She lied on her bed as usual at the

point of her death. Her husband was

praying beside her.

Carol saw her lips were pale in a

round like trying to speak something.

Her eyes flashed mysterious blue lights

like Carol’s but more frenzied. Carol

just watched her calmly with the abstruse

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eyes but could find no emotion.

Ultimately God did not listen to her

parent’s prayer. Her mother died with no

tears because the disease made her no

tears to cry, or simply she had no strength

to cry.

Her father cried for a night, but just

for a night. Perhaps her mother’s death

could be the end of an absurdity.

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Chapter VII

They did not follow the Christian way

of holding a funeral, so none of the sisters

and brothers from church had been

invited.

The funeral was basically held by

Carol. Her father didn’t have time to

care about it. The family came and cried

and left.

They received some white envelopes,

but the little amount of money couldn't

comfort them. Maybe it was not the time

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to show their pleasure, either.

Her mother would love them, if she

were still alive.

However, she has just gone to a place

they do not know.

They used the money to buy some

paper money made for the ancestors in

Chinese culture and burnt it. It was not

because they missed her mother or they

wished blessings from her mother. It

was simply because they did not need the

money.

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They lived as usual after her

mother’s death. Nothing seemed to have

changed except her father turned inwardly

and Carol had nothing more to argue with

him about.

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This is a tragedy telling about the conflict of religion in a family.

Carol was a ten-years-old girl. Carol’s mother was always weak. Her family had tried any ways to make her healthy. Then they met a missioner inviting them to church and believed in god after her mother conquered an incurable disease. Carol’s parents hoped Carol could go to the church and become a Christian, too, but Carol thought they were so ridiculous and became an anti-Christ.