This
piece was engaging on so many levels, and it is hard for me to narrow down the specific
components that made it so enjoyable for me. To being, the narrating voice in
this story does a magnificent job of remaining constant and easy to follow,
even when events in the story turn really ugly. The dichotomy between the first
half of the story and the second half is so stark that it is almost a wonder
that they are in the same work. The beauty, however, is that the very ugliness
that makes the second half of the story so despicable is the direct result of
the “slow triumphant sashay of love” in the first half. What made this piece so
compelling, at least for me, was how seamlessly the transition was made between
a world of love making that was seemingly free of consequences to a world of mental
and emotional torture with the gravest of prices to pay. Boyle does this as an
overall structure, but also embodies this idea in a specific instance on page
140. Referring to a love poem about the moon that China had written Jeremy,
Boyle writes “That’s what he called her after that, because she was white and
round and getting rounder, and it was no joke, and it was no term of endearment.
She was pregnant.” Here, Boyle does a masterful job of transitioning from a
classic lovey-dovey poem to the very serious issue of pregnancy, thereby
embodying the very essence of this story as a whole.
What made this piece seem especially
relatable was the age of the characters involved. While removed by a year or
two, any college student reading this account can feel some level of connection
with China and Jeremy, and this makes the final events of the story even more horrific
and sickening. All in all, if I were to pick any one characteristic of this
piece to emulate in my own writing, it would be Boyle’s use of parallel yet dichotomous
story structure. I thought this was particularly effective in this case and
ultimately gave his story and emotional punch that not many short stories have.
Yeah, he does a masterful and very quick switch to the second part of the story. A lesser writer would have the whole pregnancy test scene or the moment she tearfully tells him she's pregnant.
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