Birth of an artist on september 17, 1925, after hours of emergency surgery in the red cross hospital, frida kahlo was carried into a gloomy ward, the place where people without much money were taken. twenty-four other seriously ill and injured patients occupied the beds surrounding hers. one overworked nurse tended to all of them. kahlo awakened to find herself encased in a coffinlike plaster cast with only her head exposed. in addition to the terrible wound in her abdomen, her spine had been fractured in three places; she had also suffered a fractured pelvis, a dislocated shoulder, two broken ribs, and shattered bones in her right leg and foot. she was in almost unbearable pain, an agony that would persist for most of the rest of her life. in terrifying nightmares, she relived the accident and heard the screams of the other victims. her parents did not come to visit her for almost three weeks. when he heard of the crash, guillermo kahlo’s health took a turn for the worse. matilde kahlo wept constantly and would not speak for days. the long trip to mexico city was too much for them. frida’s banished sister, matita, read about the accident in the newspapers and spent hours each day at the hospital, the nurse and cheering up the patients. although some of the cachuchas visited, alex gómez was not among them, even after his own injuries had healed. as soon as kahlo could move one of her arms, she wrote to gómez, describing the horrors of her injuries and treatments. “it harmed everybody, and me most of all,” she wrote, despite the fact that several people had died during and after the bus crash. she begged him to visit, telling him, “now i see how much i love you with all my soul.” still he did not come. on october 17, 1925, exactly one month after the accident, matilde kahlo took her daughter home. there, frida’s situation worsened. still confined to her bed, the high-spirited young woman, who had learned to leap and run after her bout with polio, remained immobilized with splints and plaster casts, suffering terribly. she became self-centered and obsessed with the thought that she was about to die. most of kahlo’s school friends lived in mexico city, and they visited infrequently. kahlo believed that her family’s eccentrities discouraged them from coming. matita continued to visit, but matilde kahlo, fixed in a black mood, still would have nothing to do with her eldest daughter. she stormed out whenever matita entered the house. guillermo kahlo withdrew into himself, depressed over frida’s condition and the mountain of hospital bills. in letters to gómez, kahlo described her family as “one of the saddest i have ever seen.”
step 1: choose a topic for your discussion.
a) select a topic and text from one of the read assignments for this quarter.
b) brainstorm with your peers and teacher to decide on a topic that everyone can
discuss.
step 2: prepare for your discussion.
a) gather your own ideas about your topic.
b) review the text and look for relevant details, descriptions, quotations, and
examples that support your ideas.
c) keep notes as you prepare so you can access your ideas and supporting
evidence during the discussion.
step 3: engage in a discussion with one of your peers.
a) choose one peer to have a one-on-one discussion with you.