In Nephilim and Lay My Head, by Annette Binder, both main characters suffer from a lack of control over their bodies due to certain illnesses. These stories share an interesting perspective on how our bodies can be weak but our minds can still remain strong. Freda, the main character of Nephilim, is a giantess born to normal-sized parents due to a rare disease. Her mother often compares her and tells her stories about the Nephilim, a race descended from fallen angels and human women. “God was a blacksmith and his bones were iron. He was taking them out with a hammer” ( Binder pg 1 ). Binder expresses Freda's condition beautifully here, relating God to a blacksmith and his people as his creations, creating them into whatever shape or size he wants them to be. He never allows the reader to feel sorry for Freda, but rather expresses her illness in a mythical way. When she needs a friend most, Teddy, the neighborhood boy, comes into her life showing his kindness and unafraid of her illness. She eventually hires him to do the basic jobs she is no longer able to do because her condition makes moving painful and difficult. After Freda's mother dies, Teddy truly becomes the only human contact and companion she has. As time passes, the two grow closer and we see that his mobility decreases to the use of a cane or walker, while he increases to the bicycle and then the car. Freda's gradual physical decline shows the sense of normality she has tried to achieve. He wants to feel like everyone else, “we all come from the same place” (Binder pg 2). It doesn't want to be exceptional, it wants to be normal. Even though Teddy will eventually grow up and have to leave her just like everyone else, for a while they managed to help each other get through...the middle of paper......apparent. When the child saw Angela's face he had no reaction, because children are still so naive and this obviously doesn't matter to him. Although the child did not notice anything different about Angela, the child's mother noticed and quickly removed her child from Angela, making it clear how her illness was slowly taking over her life. After reading both of these stories, it becomes apparent how easily people are treated differently just because they have some visible deformity. Freda lives her life ashamed of her appearance and practically becomes a social hermit. Both Angela and Freda experience the daily struggle of living with an illness so serious that it forces them to become stronger individuals. Both of these people started out with a rather positive outlook on life and ended up being engulfed by their illness causing their lonely deaths..