Soon

Soon Theme and Close Reading for “Soon” Pam Durban’s “Soon” encompasses the life cycles of three generations of the Long Family. Life comes full circle in every life represented and follows in the steps of the previous generation. Elizabeth Long Crawford meets the destiny of a partially blind person when she is a young girl. Having her hopes dashed at a happy future, Elizabeth settles with a husband and has children, but both of these aspects in her life become unsatisfactory to her. Her husband dies, her son is average in her eyes, and her daughter Martha becomes the subject of constant criticism. As Martha moves on after the death of her mother, she realizes that although she wants nothing to do with her mother, she wishes she was closer to her relatives, so she organizes a family reunion. This brings about something Martha never expected. The repetitious rise and fall of hope and despair that engulfs Martha’s life takes her on the endless human journey to happiness and fulfillment. Elizabeth Long Crawford sees Martha as one of the many failures in her life. She called Martha “horsey” and knew of all of her lacking attributes. She is so distraught in the failures soon, martha, life, mother, family, something, hopes, one, never, mother’s, long, husband, human, happy, children, anything, after, woman, wishes, whole, taste, successful, sees, seeing, reunion, realizes, own, organizes, order, notice, nothing, name, much, members, marrying, man