Desire

The author uses Rachel’s brother Saul’s diagnosis with liver cancer to explore the relationship between human desire and the individual’s will to live. One of the things that is most troubling to Rachel in the days following Saul's diagnosis is his poignant sense of apathy. When she discovers her ex's daughter Nadia praying for Saul, Rachel begins to wonder if Saul is also still attached to his former Buddhist faith. She has not only become irritated by Saul's moodiness, but with his disengagement from life altogether. She says that he has gradually become "like any patient, caught up in the drama of his own ordeals, his schedule of medications, the textures of his own shrinking world. I wanted him to be better than that" (186). This passage reveals the ways in which Saul's lack of want frustrates Rachel. When she identifies his absence of...