"In the Cemetery..." just may be the most depressing thing I've ever read.

A short story by Amy Hempel, "In the Cemetery Where Al Jolson is Buried" makes tears spring to my eyes every time I read it. Just thinking about it is making me want to cry. Now, the first time I read it, I was absolutely confused. I thought it was about a lesbian couple. Then I thought it was about a mother who's baby died in the hospital as a newborn. I thought it was a bunch of different stories thrown together. It really did not add up to me.

After discussing it more clearly in class, I was having trouble holding back tears sitting at my desk. No, it was not about a lesbian couple, or a mother and her baby. It was about a young woman who felt responsibility for her dying friend whom she loved dearly, and she couldn't come to terms with the fact that her friend was dying. I've never had a friend die, and I can't imagine. I don't want to bring myself to imagine. Five years ago my grandmother died, and while I still feel pretty profound grief at losing her, for as long as I can remember I'd known she had cancer. It was, very unfortunately, a matter of when, not if. Just like in the story. And maybe that's where some of the tears regarding the story come from. But I don't think that's all of it.

Like I said, I've never lost a friend. One passage in the story was especially striking to me, and it feels so random that this out of the whole work would garner a reaction out of me. It is a description of a nurse giving the friend an injection, making both the main character and the sick friend tired. They sleep, and the main character dreams of her friend as a decorator, styling her house and singing, proudly taking the narrator to the door and showing off her accomplishment. Since at first I'd thought the story was a bunch of short stories about different people, I thought from this paragraph to the end was the description of a mother in the hospital with her sick newborn. She dreams of her daughter grown up- healthy, and wanting her mother's approval. The love of a mother for her child is so profound, and although in the story the main character is not a mother, she feels great responsibility for her friend. She feels guilty to leave her alone, and though she doesn't want to, she knows that her friend is nearing death and can't come to accept it.

Spring Awakening and its musical counterpart: A Comparison

Spring Awakening (literally translated as The Awakening of Spring, or Spring's Awakening) by Frank Wedekind is a timeless classic tale about libido, rape, gays, teenage pregnancy, and suicide. Penned originally in 1891, the topics in the story were extremely controversial, and the play was banned in many places and otherwise censored. The play was not performed for the first time until over twenty years later in 1917, where the production was proclaimed pornographic and played only one performance on the New York stage. The musical version of the show, also named Spring Awakening, experienced a much different reception. It was near-universally acclaimed by critics and audiences alike and ran for over three years, being nominated for eight Tony Awards and winning three. While the names are the same, the two works are nearly as different from each other as how they were perceived by their audiences.

Broadly speaking, the play is considered by many to be much darker than the musical. Save for the fact that the play doesn't have pop/rock songs moving the story along, the original play somehow comes across more tragic than the musical in the way of the loss of innocence. The original play is indeed subtitled "A Tragedy of Childhood".

One of the bigger changes between the two shows is the occurrence between the main characters Melchior and Wendla in a hayloft. In the play version, Melchior kisses Wendla and rapes her as she tries to persuade him to stop. In the musical, Wendla still does not want to be intimate with Melchior, but eventually he gets her to agree. In both versions, Wendla has no idea what is going on.

The second big change between the two works is the final scene: Melchior in the graveyard, where he goes to mourn his friend Moritz's suicide and he comes upon Wendla's fresh grave. She died of a botched abortion. In the musical, the ghost of Moritz comes to sing to a weeping Melchior, who pulls out a razor and nearly kills himself until the ghost of Wendla joins them. Both ghosts sing to Melchior, telling him that they will always be with him and that he should go on with his life rather than kill himself. Melchior lowers the razor, and the musical ends in a song of hope and new life. The play has the same setup: Melchior happening upon Wendla's grave. In this version, the ghost of Moritz is entirely more sinister, actually urging Melchior to kill himself and join him in the afterlife. After a long time in thought to himself, Melchior nearly complies with the ghost, until a Masked Man comes from the shadows and convinces Melchior not to do himself in. The Masked Man makes Moritz explain his true intentions: he only wishes for Melchi to join him in the afterlife because he is lonely. Moritz admits that the afterlife is miserable. The Masked Man disappears, Melchi resolves to leave the graveyard, and the play ends.