{"id":55,"date":"2026-04-06T00:28:40","date_gmt":"2026-04-06T07:28:40","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/tripteasthoughts\/?p=55"},"modified":"2026-04-06T00:47:37","modified_gmt":"2026-04-06T07:47:37","slug":"last-but-not-least","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/tripteasthoughts\/2026\/04\/06\/last-but-not-least\/","title":{"rendered":"Last but not least"},"content":{"rendered":"

I think Love Me Tender is such an interestingly written piece that goes against the ideas of love, motherhood, and identity. The expectations placed on women are traditionally challenged by the choice of personal freedom over social approval, which, as a woman of this generation, I LOVE to see. I think one of the most powerful tensions present is between motherhood and selfhood in this novel.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Another main idea is this idea of freedom vs. loss, which I think was one of the most complex parts of this novel. All the empowerment we felt through the narrator leaving behind her marriage, career, and traditional life is this pursuit of freedom. However, it comes with a cost and that too the loss of her son, which, as a mother, I think is the biggest loss one can have. The novel doesn’t show it as this simple cost-benefit situation, but allows the tension to linger between being free and grief. I started thinking about whether her freedom was truly worth it if it’s seen through the eyes of what she had to give up. As a mother, does the freedom surpass the emotional weight of that loss? In the novel, it is not really shown in dramatic ways, but more so, always there, which I think makes it more impactful. This leads me to think further about how freedom is so highlighted, but not so much the sacrifices one has to go through. The idea that the novel suggests of living authentically may need letting go of things that are meaningful to us, that realisation felt both transparent yet uncomfortable to hear, but truly is the harsh truth of life. As an international student, child of immigrants so many of us move away to pursue our dreams or just take a chance at success which in a way is freedom and that comes with a lot of sacrifices like being away from family, working many jobs, and a lot more so this idea just seems very human to me but as a mother it seems even tougher.<\/span><\/p>\n

Reading this initially, I felt disconnected, like I was being kept at arm’s length, away from the narrator’s inner world, but as I kept reading, the distance began to feel more intentional. Instead of making us feel a certain way, it forces us to sit with what is unsaid, which creates discomfort but also pushes us to understand the emotions rather than feel them passively. As unsettling as the writing style was, I definitely felt it impacted my reading of the novel, perhaps strengthened it. How did you feel reading this? Additionally, my question to discuss would be: Can freedom ever exist without some kind of sacrifice? Do you think freedom is worth the sacrifices?<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I think Love Me Tender is such an interestingly written piece that goes against the ideas of love, motherhood, and identity. The expectations placed on women are traditionally challenged by the choice of personal freedom over social approval, which, as a woman of this generation, I LOVE to see. I think one of the most […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":94353,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[44],"class_list":["post-55","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-debre"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/tripteasthoughts\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/55","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/tripteasthoughts\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/tripteasthoughts\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/tripteasthoughts\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/94353"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/tripteasthoughts\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=55"}],"version-history":[{"count":9,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/tripteasthoughts\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/55\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":65,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/tripteasthoughts\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/55\/revisions\/65"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/tripteasthoughts\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=55"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/tripteasthoughts\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=55"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/tripteasthoughts\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=55"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}