The Failure to Confront Certainties

The failure to confront life's certainties, such as the certainty of death and aging, is what the author herself defines as the main subject of Blue Nights. Throughout the book, she reflects on how she herself has failed to confront these realities throughout her entire life. Her disbelief that her daughter and her friends would succumb to premature death and illness is demonstrated by her repetition of the phrase "this was never supposed to happen to her." This phrase reflects the common human belief that the tragedies of premature illness and death are tragedies that happen to other people, but not to one's own loved ones. As such, this quote reflects one what that people fail to confront those certainties. They talk themselves into a form of denial by believing themselves and their loved ones to be immune to these certainties.

Joan's failure to...