When there is a dying child in a family's life, everything changes. When an individual is affected by an illness or death, the people that surround the individual, usually the family, are affected both psychologically and physically. In the book, My Sisters Keeper written by Jodi Picoult, a happily married couple with two children live a normal life until the day they discover that their two year old daughter, Kate, has leukemia. In the novel, their daughter Anna- who was conceived for the sole purpose for being a sibling donor match for Kate- sues her parents for the rights to her own body. Ever since Anna's pre-planned birth, she has undergone numerous procedures to provide Kate with whatever she needs to fight the disease. Anyone who reads this novel will be swept away by emotions and feelings portrayed by the author. This novel is very close to Jodi Picoults' own life, because like her characters, she was a parent who balanced the needs of different children while making a medical decision for a child with a life-threating disease. The family portrayed in this novel experiences a tragedy when they were least expecting it and in very little time it turns their life upside down. From a psychoanalytical point of view, Jodi Picoult is unconscious and conscious feelings are experienced, which helps one better understand Anna's family's psychological mindset situation, using the Kubler-Ross cycle and the motivations of each character using Freud's theory of the mind. .
Firstly, Picoults personal experience in My Sisters Keeper, - seen through her characters, especially the mother Sara- shows her unconscious and conscious mindset. Jodi Picoult, just like the characters in her story, her life was falling apart due to a sick child. She has three wonderful children, and like every other mother, she has made her trips to the pediatrician for pink eyes, broken bones, coughs, colds and much more.
