Suggested topics: theme(s) and structure; importance of the text within the context of the author’s work and time; subject of the enunciation; point of view and effect upon the reader/addressee; rhetoric and linguistic devices and language tropes (descriptive or lyric manner, figures of speech, symbolism, innovation / surprising markers, collocations, or pattern traces within the author’s work); intertextuality with texts studied in this class or others.
This short story could be chronologically divided into four parts, the trip to the sanitarium, the moment the parents visit his son, the trip back home in the evening and the night conversation the couple has in the living room. However, the text is rich in analepsis in order to illustrate the family's background. The beginning of the text sets the tone for its rest, the way it says "For the fourth time in as many years" indicates a sense of dread, impotency, that later is shown to be the condition of the couple's son, which is irredeemable. I found the heavy use of personification on page 22 really interesting, as it better described the world perception of the hospitalized son while allowing some desperation from the parents to show through a quick moment of sarcasm "If only the interest he provokes were limited to his immediate surroundings, but alas, it is not!". I also found the mention to the helpless bird on the ground really puzzling, possibly some foreshadowing to the end of the short story which leaves the reader with no actual clear ending. The third caller might me the same person from the two before looking for a Charlie, but the third one may be a call from the sanitarium to let the parents know that their son's last attempt to taking his own life was successful, the reader never knows. This would make sense as it would match the eerie tone of the whole text, since moments before the phone calls the man and wife were having a "celebratory tea" to commemorate their decision of bringing their son back home. They were making plans and feeling positive that it would work out, not to mention the anxiety that the husband was feeling from fearing the worst, and anticipating the guilt and responsibility that would be theirs if they didn't intervene. Another foreshadowing moment that could enhance this perspective would be the moment when the mother is looking at the photo album and the narrator bluntly writes, almost as if unprecedented, that "she had accepted (...) living does not mean accepting the loss of one joy after another, not even joys in her case, mere possibilities of improvement." which is exactly what bringing their son home would be. I also think it is important to point out the "bus (...) crammed with garrulous high-school children", a stark contrast from the sanitarium and their kid.
ReplyDelete