Introduction to Thump Anthology
Amelia D. Bailey
LIT 2205
Dr. Adrienne Cassel
7 November 2014
An Introduction to the Anthology: Thump
Hjalmar Söderberg once said that “People want to be loved; failing that admired; failing that feared; failing that hated and despised. They want to evoke some sort of sentiment. The soul shudders before oblivion and seeks connection at any price.” It’s true that as human beings we seem to strive to make some sort of connect with each other. Some people believe our need to form social and romantic relationships is a social construct created by us as part of the cultural norms that have developed over time in order to meet the changes in our thought process as people started to document and analyze their lives. So, whether you believe our desire for relationships is due to the natural evolution of humans or to meet some socially constructed ideal of our existence, making connections does seem to bring us joy and stress; we’ve come to a point in time where we feel that we need to engage with each other in order to achieve a higher level of thought. Without other people to debate the big questions about life, to contemplate the importance of our rights and our responsibilities as conscious beings, where would we be as a society? Through this anthology I want to attempt to understand the gravitation that pulls us to each other and how our emotions both complicate and invigorate those relationships. Why do we want to be loved? Why do we want to be remembered? I want to explore the concepts of our need to love and be loved and the cruelty we are capable of inflicting on one another. I also want to explore our fears of the unknown and the loneliness that often spars us into making those connections regardless of the risk to our hearts.
The five stories in this anthology focus on the impact of the connections we make with each other whether they are relationships forged by blood, marriage, friendship, or animosity. Patrick Lane, Flabbergasted, Hush, Proton Decay, The Present, and The Lottery all act as a reflection of human connection through their exploration of setting, imagery, and point-of-view. The setting for each story places the characters in environments that will either help their relationships flourish or deteriorate. While imagery throughout the stories leads readers through a sort of mental framework of the characters’ lives and allows us to feel as if we are there with them, so we can better understand their choices. Point-of-view follows a similar line of perception as imagery, since the third person perspective allows readers a deeper insight into the characters and their interactions. I think so much would be lost if the stories weren’t told from the perspective of people seeking out emotional bonds as they try to navigate through the murky waters of their relationships.
Setting is the environment or surrounding in which a story takes place, so it’s important throughout the stories because of the way in which the characters differing environments affect their ability to make those connections with people. In Patrick Lane, Flabbergasted we follow the life of Brandon Fowler as he tries to traverse the minefield of death that surrounds him, from his parents seemly abrupt suicide to the multiple funerals of his high school friends, that he can’t bring himself to attend. Brandon finds himself drifting further and further away from reality as his family home, which he is supposed to be repairing for sale seems to get harder and harder to complete. As Brandon buries himself deeper into the setting of the decaying small town he grew up in, his dead-end job at the town grocery store, and his dead parents deteriorating house; Brandon becomes more isolated from the world around him, “to be honest, there were simply fewer and fewer things he felt like doing. That he could even bring himself to do. He'd stay up late playing video games on an aging PlayStation system he had hooked up to the television in the living room. He'd go to work at the grocery store. Sometimes he'd look at porn or read various message boards on the Internet. That was about the extent of it. It seemed like he hardly ever talked to anyone anymore (Chaon 56).”
Imagery utilizes figurative language like metaphor’s, similes, and personification to create beautiful images in order to make a connection with our senses, from sight and sound to smell, taste, and touch. Brandon’s description of his hometown’s decline is a great example of the imagery used throughout the story to convey the self-imposed isolation that Brandon spirals into, “many of the stores were closing and remaining empty—the old Beatrice Academy of Beauty across from the high school had shut down, and through the cracked windows you could see the hair dryers all piled together in a jumble, like dead spacemen. Parking meters along the block had been beheaded and were now just bare pipes sticking up out of the sidewalk. There were also more vacant lots than there used to be when he was growing up. There were lots where there once were houses, houses that he used to pass by on his way to school as a kid, and it seemed that they just came and took the houses away when he hadn't been paying attention. All that remained were patches of high grass and weeds, not even a foundation (Chaon 71-72).”
With point-of-view I think it’s really important to the stories because third person allows readers to have a better understanding of human connection and the insight it gives into the thoughts and feelings of the characters, while remaining detached enough to watch the relationships as they unfold naturally. In Patrick Lane, Flabbergasted Brandon’s downward spiral is observed from a distance by the readers and by the character himself. Because of the perspective we are able to watch Brandon pull away from human interaction, confining himself to his work and the living room of his parents’ house, “He was aware that he might be having sleep issues. He might be addicted to the Internet and video games and maybe that was part of it. That was why he couldn't seem to get the house cleaned up and that was why he kept missing important social-obligation-type things like funerals and that was why he was waking up in the middle of the night writing stuff on his hands and his arms and even his legs and so on which he couldn't remember writing in the morning though there would sometimes be a Sharpie pen clutched in his fist (Chaon 74)”.
The setting in David Guterson’s Hush is almost overwhelming in its ability to trudge through the mutual loneliness that plagues the main characters without ever verbalizing those emotions. In the story Vivian Lee is a dog walker who finds herself stumbling into the life of Kirk Douglas lookalike, Lou Calhoun and his old Rottweiler, Bill’s lives. From the beginning we know that Lou isn’t smooth like a pebble under a waterfall, but rough and jagged like a cliff edge; “…his house was hard to find. A cemetery interfered with the continuity of addresses. She had to snake around the back of it, contending with speed bumps, on streets cracked and buckled by hoary roots and littered with dropped catkins. Lou's house turned out to be conspicuously new, given the mossy neighborhood. He had a no-maintenance yard, all gravel and beauty bark, and some bonsai trees in pots that either needed water or were dead already (Guterson 238).” The use of imagery in the story does a great job of showcasing the evolving relationship between Lou and Vivian; their relationship leaps upon you unexpectedly, leaving you desperate for Lou and even Bill’s survival, yet by the end some peace can be found in knowing they discovered each other when they were both in need of a little care and kindness.
On the surface Lou and Vivian look like two very different people, Lou's been through two marriages, two son’s he never sees, and a granddaughter in Guam who calls occasionally; while Vivian is broke financially and emotionally after being cheated on repeatedly, with a twenty year old son living with his dad and doing nothing productive with his life. Lou and Vivian in away are kindred spirits as they are the only ones who don’t judge each other; they’ve taken each other as they are, scars and all. Hush is stark in its interesting use of third person because although the story moves through Vivian Lee, we learn very little about her until the end of the story; the story follows Vivian and the narrator’s observations of Lou and his steady decline. Through this third person perspective we are able to see just how much walking his dog, selling his car, knocking down bee hives, and just listening to Lou prattle on about his finances, his granddaughter, and his aliments affect Vivian; “erring on the side of caution, then, Vivian said, "Hush." By which she meant what? She didn't know, actually. "Hush," she said again, but it wasn't enough. She needed to say more, she needed to explain it—she who walked dogs and did errands for rich people. “At least I wasn't nothing in your eyes," she said, then put a hand on Lou's wrist and squeezed it. "Hush," she said, one more time (Guterson 265).”
In the case of Proton Decay and The Present there is a uniqueness to their settings as they move from place to place and from present to past as the characters struggle to make romantic connections, to find someone worth spending the rest of their lives with. In Proton Decay we’re introduced to Jerome Feldman as he falls for Irene Silver, a scientist he’s only seen on 60 Minutes. At forty-six Jerome is a successful pharmacist who has spent most of his life building his career and assisting his strong-willed grandmother. Jerome never regretted pursuing a career over a relationship, but he had also never met anyone who made him want a long-term relationship until Irene. Jerome becomes smitten with Irene, longing for that connection with someone he thinks will understand him, but the fear of risking his heart and his insecurities on being able to satisfy someone as brilliant as Irene Silver plagues him. The fact that they've never met becomes a part of the setting and plays a large role in Jerome and Irene’s ability to connect with each other; their physical distance is daunting for Jerome, as Cleveland, Ohio is quite far from her underground lab and three thousand tons of water.
The imagery used to describe Jerome’s childhood, “An only child of an only child, Feldman had always been Grandma's boy, her little helper. When Grandma heaved in her foaming bath there stood five-year-old Feldman, lifeguard on the other side of the shower curtain. His mother and Grandma’s hands would take their little pharmacist-to-be into ladies' rooms with them, into the tiny curtained dressing room at Simpson's Department Store, where skirts fell like spilled drinks and price tags dangled at their arms. At a young age he observed females up close, knew the underarm pad and the hook-and-eye snap. He loved the company of women and yet he had passed up marriage opportunities…(Apple),” is a great example of Jerome’s relationship with women and how those connections he made as a child would go on to effect the choices he makes in choosing a romantic partner. Since his father died when he was quite young, Jerome has been continually surrounded by strong, independent women like his mother and grandmother his whole life; these connections likely explain his interest in Irene Silver because she’s different from the women he’s been involved with before; she isn’t a forgettable cashier or cosmetics clerk, and she isn’t overly aggressive like Jackie Norton, the Sprint representative; she’s independent, her own person, she isn’t afraid to be wrong, and she doesn’t revel in being right. Also in Proton Decay we’re given a glimpse into Jerome’s hesitation and love for Irene through the third person perspective, “There would be no secrets kept from Irene Silver. Feldman wanted to present her with everything: the three stores, his dead parents, and the accumulated experience of his life as a man. He rose to introduce himself to the woman he had chosen to love. She watched him approach and held out her hand. "I hope you're not disappointed," she said. Feldman, too overcome to speak, took her hand and held it (Apple).”
In The Present the setting is time its self as Professor Xander Kaplan finds himself trying to figure out the best way to show is girlfriend, Emily how much he loves her after failing to give her a thoughtful birthday present. Xander invents a time machine with only enough fuel for five minutes, so as he racks his brain trying to determine the best gift to give Emily, we are thrust back into the past where we learn the importance of Xander’s relationship with Emily, “He'd stuffed his papers into his briefcase and shuffled through the rain to the 116th Street station…It had been several days since Xander's last conversation with a human…And when she started to speak to him, he felt the stirrings of a panic attack. But Emily's friendly smile managed somehow to put him as ease. She was awfully cheerful…by the end of their shared subway ride, he was sure he'd experienced a miracle. This wonderful person had shown up out of nowhere and given him a chance at love (Rich 194-195).”
After Xander goes back in time to the day he met Emily, through imagery we are given an intimate look into the immeasurable love Xander feels for Emily and his willingness to do anything in order to ensure her happiness, “he was about to turn away when she leaned over the turnstile and hugged him. It was exactly as he remembered it, her long brown hair brushing softly against his neck, his entire body tingling with warmth (Rich 197-198).” Alfred, Lord Tennyson is famous for saying “Tis better to have loved and lost than never to have loved at all”; the love we feel for each other and the heartache we cause is like a double-edged sword. Is the excruciating pain we cause each other worth the breathtaking passion we can experience with each other? In Xander and Emily’s case, he determined that the agony he caused her was greater than the love they shared; but did Xander have the right to make that decision? Was it selfish?
The Present’s third person perspective allows us to watch Xander’s struggle as he came to terms with his inability to connect with Emily, even though he loved her, “This wonderful person had shown up out of nowhere and given him a chance at love. And in return, he'd given her three years of misery. He thought about all of his Saturday nights at the lab, ignoring her calls, making excuses. He thought about the way she'd cried when he handed her the tulips. How could he make up for three years of romantic ineptitude with a single birthday present? (Rich 195).”
The setting for The Lottery takes place in a small village where everyone knows each other, “The people of the village began to gather in the square…in some towns there were so many people that the lottery took two days and had to be started on June 2th, but in this village, where there were only about three hundred people, the whole lottery took less than two hours, so it could begin at ten o'clock in the morning and still be through in time to allow the villagers to get home for noon dinner (Jackson).” The town’s people start to gather in the town square for the annual lottery as everything appears to be normal, “Mrs. Hutchinson craned her neck to see through the crowd and found her husband and children standing near the front…The people separated good-humoredly to let her through…Mrs. Hutchinson reached her husband, and Mr. Summers, who had been waiting, said cheerfully. "Thought we were going to have to get on without you, Tessie." Mrs. Hutchinson said grinning, "Wouldn't have me leave m'dishes in the sink, now, would you. Joe?," and soft laughter ran through the crowd…(Jackson).” At this point we are introduced to the main character Tessie Hutchinson, and as the lottery gets underway, the good nature humor between the town’s folks starts to dissolve, leaving us with a traumatic event that pits family, friends, and neighbors against each other. The human connection in this story is even more profound because in a village so small, it can be assumed that almost everyone knew each other in some way or another, making the true intent of the lottery even more disturbing.
There is a lot of vivid imagery in The Lottery, contrasting the darker elements of the story with the quiet and cheerfulness of a small town, “The lottery was conducted...by Mr. Summers who had time and energy to devote to civic activities. He was a round-faced, jovial man and he ran the coal business…Every year, after the lottery, Mr. Summers began talking again about a new box, but every year the subject was allowed to fade off without anything being done. The black box grew shabbier each year: by now it was no longer completely black but splintered badly along one side to show the original wood color, and in some places faded or stained (Jackson).” Using the third person point-of-view in The Lottery allows us to examine the relationships between the characters in more detail without worrying if we can trust the information the narrator gives to us. The small community in The Lottery showcases the uglier side of human relationships; many of these people grew up together and worked to together, they were neighbors, friends, spouses, and their children, and they all came together to stone Tessie Hutchinson to death. One of the most disturbing things about The Lottery beyond Mrs. Hutchinson’s death is the villagers lack of knowledge in regards to why they randomly selected one person to be stoned every year, “Although the villagers had forgotten the ritual and lost the original black box, they still remembered to use stones…The children had stones already. And someone gave little Davy Hutchinson a few pebbles. Tessie Hutchinson was in the center of a cleared space by now, and she held her hands out desperately as the villagers moved in on her. "It isn't fair," she said. A stone hit her on the side of the head…"It isn't fair, it isn't right," Mrs. Hutchinson screamed, and then they were upon her (Jackson).” This begs the question, how can we seek out these connections to each other, look for love and fulfillment from each other if we can so easily destroy each other with such recklessness?
I think the most powerful thing about all of these stories is their honestly in observing our treatment of each other because they explore all the messy layers and complexity in our relationships. Human connection can be a beautiful thing, but it can also be strife with ugliness and loneliness. Even when we suffer through the pain of losing someone close to us, when we fear the possibility of heart break, when we realize that we’re the ones inflicting pain on someone, or when we’re betrayed by the people we thought cared for us, we still continue to strive for that connection. We are social creatures and we thrive on our relationships with each other even when it hurts us. Osamu Dazai said, “I am convinced that human life is filled with many pure, happy, serene examples of insincerity, truly splendid of their kind-of people deceiving one another without (strangely enough) any wounds being inflicted, of people who seem unaware even that they are deceiving one another.”
Amelia D. Bailey
LIT 2205
Dr. Adrienne Cassel
7 November 2014
An Introduction to the Anthology: Thump
Hjalmar Söderberg once said that “People want to be loved; failing that admired; failing that feared; failing that hated and despised. They want to evoke some sort of sentiment. The soul shudders before oblivion and seeks connection at any price.” It’s true that as human beings we seem to strive to make some sort of connect with each other. Some people believe our need to form social and romantic relationships is a social construct created by us as part of the cultural norms that have developed over time in order to meet the changes in our thought process as people started to document and analyze their lives. So, whether you believe our desire for relationships is due to the natural evolution of humans or to meet some socially constructed ideal of our existence, making connections does seem to bring us joy and stress; we’ve come to a point in time where we feel that we need to engage with each other in order to achieve a higher level of thought. Without other people to debate the big questions about life, to contemplate the importance of our rights and our responsibilities as conscious beings, where would we be as a society? Through this anthology I want to attempt to understand the gravitation that pulls us to each other and how our emotions both complicate and invigorate those relationships. Why do we want to be loved? Why do we want to be remembered? I want to explore the concepts of our need to love and be loved and the cruelty we are capable of inflicting on one another. I also want to explore our fears of the unknown and the loneliness that often spars us into making those connections regardless of the risk to our hearts.
The five stories in this anthology focus on the impact of the connections we make with each other whether they are relationships forged by blood, marriage, friendship, or animosity. Patrick Lane, Flabbergasted, Hush, Proton Decay, The Present, and The Lottery all act as a reflection of human connection through their exploration of setting, imagery, and point-of-view. The setting for each story places the characters in environments that will either help their relationships flourish or deteriorate. While imagery throughout the stories leads readers through a sort of mental framework of the characters’ lives and allows us to feel as if we are there with them, so we can better understand their choices. Point-of-view follows a similar line of perception as imagery, since the third person perspective allows readers a deeper insight into the characters and their interactions. I think so much would be lost if the stories weren’t told from the perspective of people seeking out emotional bonds as they try to navigate through the murky waters of their relationships.
Setting is the environment or surrounding in which a story takes place, so it’s important throughout the stories because of the way in which the characters differing environments affect their ability to make those connections with people. In Patrick Lane, Flabbergasted we follow the life of Brandon Fowler as he tries to traverse the minefield of death that surrounds him, from his parents seemly abrupt suicide to the multiple funerals of his high school friends, that he can’t bring himself to attend. Brandon finds himself drifting further and further away from reality as his family home, which he is supposed to be repairing for sale seems to get harder and harder to complete. As Brandon buries himself deeper into the setting of the decaying small town he grew up in, his dead-end job at the town grocery store, and his dead parents deteriorating house; Brandon becomes more isolated from the world around him, “to be honest, there were simply fewer and fewer things he felt like doing. That he could even bring himself to do. He'd stay up late playing video games on an aging PlayStation system he had hooked up to the television in the living room. He'd go to work at the grocery store. Sometimes he'd look at porn or read various message boards on the Internet. That was about the extent of it. It seemed like he hardly ever talked to anyone anymore (Chaon 56).”
Imagery utilizes figurative language like metaphor’s, similes, and personification to create beautiful images in order to make a connection with our senses, from sight and sound to smell, taste, and touch. Brandon’s description of his hometown’s decline is a great example of the imagery used throughout the story to convey the self-imposed isolation that Brandon spirals into, “many of the stores were closing and remaining empty—the old Beatrice Academy of Beauty across from the high school had shut down, and through the cracked windows you could see the hair dryers all piled together in a jumble, like dead spacemen. Parking meters along the block had been beheaded and were now just bare pipes sticking up out of the sidewalk. There were also more vacant lots than there used to be when he was growing up. There were lots where there once were houses, houses that he used to pass by on his way to school as a kid, and it seemed that they just came and took the houses away when he hadn't been paying attention. All that remained were patches of high grass and weeds, not even a foundation (Chaon 71-72).”
With point-of-view I think it’s really important to the stories because third person allows readers to have a better understanding of human connection and the insight it gives into the thoughts and feelings of the characters, while remaining detached enough to watch the relationships as they unfold naturally. In Patrick Lane, Flabbergasted Brandon’s downward spiral is observed from a distance by the readers and by the character himself. Because of the perspective we are able to watch Brandon pull away from human interaction, confining himself to his work and the living room of his parents’ house, “He was aware that he might be having sleep issues. He might be addicted to the Internet and video games and maybe that was part of it. That was why he couldn't seem to get the house cleaned up and that was why he kept missing important social-obligation-type things like funerals and that was why he was waking up in the middle of the night writing stuff on his hands and his arms and even his legs and so on which he couldn't remember writing in the morning though there would sometimes be a Sharpie pen clutched in his fist (Chaon 74)”.
The setting in David Guterson’s Hush is almost overwhelming in its ability to trudge through the mutual loneliness that plagues the main characters without ever verbalizing those emotions. In the story Vivian Lee is a dog walker who finds herself stumbling into the life of Kirk Douglas lookalike, Lou Calhoun and his old Rottweiler, Bill’s lives. From the beginning we know that Lou isn’t smooth like a pebble under a waterfall, but rough and jagged like a cliff edge; “…his house was hard to find. A cemetery interfered with the continuity of addresses. She had to snake around the back of it, contending with speed bumps, on streets cracked and buckled by hoary roots and littered with dropped catkins. Lou's house turned out to be conspicuously new, given the mossy neighborhood. He had a no-maintenance yard, all gravel and beauty bark, and some bonsai trees in pots that either needed water or were dead already (Guterson 238).” The use of imagery in the story does a great job of showcasing the evolving relationship between Lou and Vivian; their relationship leaps upon you unexpectedly, leaving you desperate for Lou and even Bill’s survival, yet by the end some peace can be found in knowing they discovered each other when they were both in need of a little care and kindness.
On the surface Lou and Vivian look like two very different people, Lou's been through two marriages, two son’s he never sees, and a granddaughter in Guam who calls occasionally; while Vivian is broke financially and emotionally after being cheated on repeatedly, with a twenty year old son living with his dad and doing nothing productive with his life. Lou and Vivian in away are kindred spirits as they are the only ones who don’t judge each other; they’ve taken each other as they are, scars and all. Hush is stark in its interesting use of third person because although the story moves through Vivian Lee, we learn very little about her until the end of the story; the story follows Vivian and the narrator’s observations of Lou and his steady decline. Through this third person perspective we are able to see just how much walking his dog, selling his car, knocking down bee hives, and just listening to Lou prattle on about his finances, his granddaughter, and his aliments affect Vivian; “erring on the side of caution, then, Vivian said, "Hush." By which she meant what? She didn't know, actually. "Hush," she said again, but it wasn't enough. She needed to say more, she needed to explain it—she who walked dogs and did errands for rich people. “At least I wasn't nothing in your eyes," she said, then put a hand on Lou's wrist and squeezed it. "Hush," she said, one more time (Guterson 265).”
In the case of Proton Decay and The Present there is a uniqueness to their settings as they move from place to place and from present to past as the characters struggle to make romantic connections, to find someone worth spending the rest of their lives with. In Proton Decay we’re introduced to Jerome Feldman as he falls for Irene Silver, a scientist he’s only seen on 60 Minutes. At forty-six Jerome is a successful pharmacist who has spent most of his life building his career and assisting his strong-willed grandmother. Jerome never regretted pursuing a career over a relationship, but he had also never met anyone who made him want a long-term relationship until Irene. Jerome becomes smitten with Irene, longing for that connection with someone he thinks will understand him, but the fear of risking his heart and his insecurities on being able to satisfy someone as brilliant as Irene Silver plagues him. The fact that they've never met becomes a part of the setting and plays a large role in Jerome and Irene’s ability to connect with each other; their physical distance is daunting for Jerome, as Cleveland, Ohio is quite far from her underground lab and three thousand tons of water.
The imagery used to describe Jerome’s childhood, “An only child of an only child, Feldman had always been Grandma's boy, her little helper. When Grandma heaved in her foaming bath there stood five-year-old Feldman, lifeguard on the other side of the shower curtain. His mother and Grandma’s hands would take their little pharmacist-to-be into ladies' rooms with them, into the tiny curtained dressing room at Simpson's Department Store, where skirts fell like spilled drinks and price tags dangled at their arms. At a young age he observed females up close, knew the underarm pad and the hook-and-eye snap. He loved the company of women and yet he had passed up marriage opportunities…(Apple),” is a great example of Jerome’s relationship with women and how those connections he made as a child would go on to effect the choices he makes in choosing a romantic partner. Since his father died when he was quite young, Jerome has been continually surrounded by strong, independent women like his mother and grandmother his whole life; these connections likely explain his interest in Irene Silver because she’s different from the women he’s been involved with before; she isn’t a forgettable cashier or cosmetics clerk, and she isn’t overly aggressive like Jackie Norton, the Sprint representative; she’s independent, her own person, she isn’t afraid to be wrong, and she doesn’t revel in being right. Also in Proton Decay we’re given a glimpse into Jerome’s hesitation and love for Irene through the third person perspective, “There would be no secrets kept from Irene Silver. Feldman wanted to present her with everything: the three stores, his dead parents, and the accumulated experience of his life as a man. He rose to introduce himself to the woman he had chosen to love. She watched him approach and held out her hand. "I hope you're not disappointed," she said. Feldman, too overcome to speak, took her hand and held it (Apple).”
In The Present the setting is time its self as Professor Xander Kaplan finds himself trying to figure out the best way to show is girlfriend, Emily how much he loves her after failing to give her a thoughtful birthday present. Xander invents a time machine with only enough fuel for five minutes, so as he racks his brain trying to determine the best gift to give Emily, we are thrust back into the past where we learn the importance of Xander’s relationship with Emily, “He'd stuffed his papers into his briefcase and shuffled through the rain to the 116th Street station…It had been several days since Xander's last conversation with a human…And when she started to speak to him, he felt the stirrings of a panic attack. But Emily's friendly smile managed somehow to put him as ease. She was awfully cheerful…by the end of their shared subway ride, he was sure he'd experienced a miracle. This wonderful person had shown up out of nowhere and given him a chance at love (Rich 194-195).”
After Xander goes back in time to the day he met Emily, through imagery we are given an intimate look into the immeasurable love Xander feels for Emily and his willingness to do anything in order to ensure her happiness, “he was about to turn away when she leaned over the turnstile and hugged him. It was exactly as he remembered it, her long brown hair brushing softly against his neck, his entire body tingling with warmth (Rich 197-198).” Alfred, Lord Tennyson is famous for saying “Tis better to have loved and lost than never to have loved at all”; the love we feel for each other and the heartache we cause is like a double-edged sword. Is the excruciating pain we cause each other worth the breathtaking passion we can experience with each other? In Xander and Emily’s case, he determined that the agony he caused her was greater than the love they shared; but did Xander have the right to make that decision? Was it selfish?
The Present’s third person perspective allows us to watch Xander’s struggle as he came to terms with his inability to connect with Emily, even though he loved her, “This wonderful person had shown up out of nowhere and given him a chance at love. And in return, he'd given her three years of misery. He thought about all of his Saturday nights at the lab, ignoring her calls, making excuses. He thought about the way she'd cried when he handed her the tulips. How could he make up for three years of romantic ineptitude with a single birthday present? (Rich 195).”
The setting for The Lottery takes place in a small village where everyone knows each other, “The people of the village began to gather in the square…in some towns there were so many people that the lottery took two days and had to be started on June 2th, but in this village, where there were only about three hundred people, the whole lottery took less than two hours, so it could begin at ten o'clock in the morning and still be through in time to allow the villagers to get home for noon dinner (Jackson).” The town’s people start to gather in the town square for the annual lottery as everything appears to be normal, “Mrs. Hutchinson craned her neck to see through the crowd and found her husband and children standing near the front…The people separated good-humoredly to let her through…Mrs. Hutchinson reached her husband, and Mr. Summers, who had been waiting, said cheerfully. "Thought we were going to have to get on without you, Tessie." Mrs. Hutchinson said grinning, "Wouldn't have me leave m'dishes in the sink, now, would you. Joe?," and soft laughter ran through the crowd…(Jackson).” At this point we are introduced to the main character Tessie Hutchinson, and as the lottery gets underway, the good nature humor between the town’s folks starts to dissolve, leaving us with a traumatic event that pits family, friends, and neighbors against each other. The human connection in this story is even more profound because in a village so small, it can be assumed that almost everyone knew each other in some way or another, making the true intent of the lottery even more disturbing.
There is a lot of vivid imagery in The Lottery, contrasting the darker elements of the story with the quiet and cheerfulness of a small town, “The lottery was conducted...by Mr. Summers who had time and energy to devote to civic activities. He was a round-faced, jovial man and he ran the coal business…Every year, after the lottery, Mr. Summers began talking again about a new box, but every year the subject was allowed to fade off without anything being done. The black box grew shabbier each year: by now it was no longer completely black but splintered badly along one side to show the original wood color, and in some places faded or stained (Jackson).” Using the third person point-of-view in The Lottery allows us to examine the relationships between the characters in more detail without worrying if we can trust the information the narrator gives to us. The small community in The Lottery showcases the uglier side of human relationships; many of these people grew up together and worked to together, they were neighbors, friends, spouses, and their children, and they all came together to stone Tessie Hutchinson to death. One of the most disturbing things about The Lottery beyond Mrs. Hutchinson’s death is the villagers lack of knowledge in regards to why they randomly selected one person to be stoned every year, “Although the villagers had forgotten the ritual and lost the original black box, they still remembered to use stones…The children had stones already. And someone gave little Davy Hutchinson a few pebbles. Tessie Hutchinson was in the center of a cleared space by now, and she held her hands out desperately as the villagers moved in on her. "It isn't fair," she said. A stone hit her on the side of the head…"It isn't fair, it isn't right," Mrs. Hutchinson screamed, and then they were upon her (Jackson).” This begs the question, how can we seek out these connections to each other, look for love and fulfillment from each other if we can so easily destroy each other with such recklessness?
I think the most powerful thing about all of these stories is their honestly in observing our treatment of each other because they explore all the messy layers and complexity in our relationships. Human connection can be a beautiful thing, but it can also be strife with ugliness and loneliness. Even when we suffer through the pain of losing someone close to us, when we fear the possibility of heart break, when we realize that we’re the ones inflicting pain on someone, or when we’re betrayed by the people we thought cared for us, we still continue to strive for that connection. We are social creatures and we thrive on our relationships with each other even when it hurts us. Osamu Dazai said, “I am convinced that human life is filled with many pure, happy, serene examples of insincerity, truly splendid of their kind-of people deceiving one another without (strangely enough) any wounds being inflicted, of people who seem unaware even that they are deceiving one another.”