Winning A Trial
Title : Midwives
Author : Chris Bohjalian
Edition : 1997 (First Edition)
Place : New York
Publisher : Vintage Contemporaries, Random House
ISBN :
0-375-70677-1
Pages : 372
Midwives is
a fiction novel written by Chris Bohjalian.
The novel tells the story of a trial of a midwife named Sybil Danforth’s
due to his performance of an emergency caesarian section towards Charlotte
Fugget Bedford to save her second baby. The journey of her trial in this book
is narrated by her daughter, Connie. The story was a worth to read and give us
the reader different sight of baby delivering. This novel also has an
intriguing plot on the process of her trial, how she struggling during the
court, how the loyalty works on family, and the spark of love affairs. It makes
the readers enjoy the novel and can’t take their eyes off it.
The main
characters of this novel are Sybil Danforth, Connie her daughter, and Stephen
Hasting, the lawyer. Sybil Danforth was a passionate woman who loved his job.
She couldn’t imagine if she was banned to do the labor. She believed she was
born to help mothers delivering the baby, as a midwife. When she helped
Charlotte, she was truly caring about her family; she believed that she had to
save at least one soul, which was what led her to the trial. During her trial,
once she ever lost her confident of her innocence, but she could endure it. She
had been through the trial with the encouragements from people around her. The
next is a fourteen years old Connie, Sybil daughter. She was never tired to
support her mother. She was a mature girl who could read a situation. While she
found out that her mother has an affair with Stephen, the lawyer, she didn’t
try to make the situation worst by kept in silence. The last one is Stephen
Hasting, a man who falls in love with his client, Sybil. He did much things for
Sybil not only because he a hundred percent sure that he would win the trial
but also because he loved her. He made
the trial succeed till the end.
The best
character so far that I really like the most is Connie. She took a greatest
action without her mother knowing. Her mother would never win the trial if she didn’t save her by taking a single note form
her mother’s notebook that indicated
Charlotte’s body was flinching. She was a brave girl at the young age to do such
thing. She did it because she loves her mother so much, and she knowed
her mother did nothing wrong.
Even though
I have lots of thing that I like in this novel, I found out that Stephen
Hasting and Sybil affair as the worst part from the plot twist. How Stephen
behaves towards Sybil as his client showed that he was not a professional
lawyer. The fact that Connie had noticed them proved that he couldn’t separate
his personal life from the work life. Every time he tried to show his affection
to Sybil, it triggered me to skip the part because I simply hate it.
Fortunately, the author didn’t stress the description of the affair in the
entire chapter.
In
each chapter, the author provides us the note from Sybil notebooks. Every note
has a lesson that I can learn. In on of the note, Sybil wrote “…Here’s what I
think I’ll do about the coffee. She can have coffee in the morning before
school, but not after dinner. If she wants to start the day with a cup of
coffee, that’s cool. But none before bedtime because she is still growing, and
she does need her sleep.” (page 142). This short quotation froma Sybil notes is interesting to me. Sometimes I really
like cheesy
slice of life things like what
Connie’s mother did. Her mother watched
every little things about Connie, even for a cup of coffee that she sipped. She
still looked after her daughter, her growth and development, her behaviours.
She deeply knew how scared Connie was. It made me realize that a daughter is
eveything for her mother. I can relate this
simply sweet expression in my real
life. I love this Novel, and I highly recommend everyone to give it a try.
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