“…death is a natural part of life and when nature is taking a human’s life extreme measures should never be taken to prevent it because everyone lives for a reason and everyone dies for a reason.” (“Jodi Picoult: My Sister’s Keeper.” APLiterature. These words were written by a literary critic in regard to Jodi Picoult’s novel My Sister’s Keeper but equally applies to Judith Guest’s novel Ordinary People. Anything that affects one’s family will affect its individual members, and anything that affects the individual members will affect the family. The death or serious illnesses of a child are faced in both of these novels, which have many parallels in common. First of all, the death or illness can have a major impact on the life of the siblings. Secondly, both mothers have a negative responses to the illness or death of her child. Finally, the fathers are understanding towards the situation and realizes the consequences that the siblings are facing.
To begin with, Picoult portrays the struggles that a major tragedy caused on the Fitzgerald family. Brian and Sara Fitzgerald thought that they had the perfect family. They had their son, Jesse, and their daughter, Kate. When Kate was two years old her mother found unexpected bruises up and down her spine, in which she then took Kate to the hospital. When at the hospital, Kate’s doctors told Brian and Sara that “Kate’s complete blood count had some abnormal results…and that suggests a leukemic syndrome…Leukemia is a blood cancer” (Picoult 32-33). Brian and Sara were devastated. The life of their poor little girl was going to be shortened and they didn’t know what to do. A critic from Kirkus Review stated that My Sister’s Keeper “vividly evokes the physical and psychic toll a desperately sick child imposes on a family” (“Picoult”). In order for Kate to prolong her life, she was in need of bone marrow transplants as well as many other procedures. Brian and Sara immediately test to see if they are a perfect...