Morris’ attention to detail was really prevalent in this short story. Morris has the narrator use very detailed imagery to describe the people of Pirates Cove and the beach itself. Everything in the first couple of paragraphs was very descriptive and imagery based and I think for a short story it’s always helpful when the author is able to immediately pull its readers into the world they are writing about. The entire story is sort of built on detailed imagery.
Josh was so consumed by how much everyone on the beach obsessed over him that he only saw Mrs. Lovenhiem as another admirer. The way he wasn’t able to sit alone in his lifeguard chair without having girls swarm him just added to his ego and made him think he was on top of Pirates Cove. He was so absorbed in the fact that Mrs. Lovehiem didn’t treat him the way everyone else on the beach did that he failed to take into account she comes to the beach to lounge not to gawk at the lifeguard on duty.
I think the only issue with the story is the ending, I’d wish there was something Josh had learned about Mrs. Lovenhiem, she continues being a mystery to the reader and narrator even after the story ends
I have mixed feelings about the ending as well, while I have a lot of curiosity about Mrs. Lovenhiem and wish that I knew more about her besides the two actual run-ins that Josh has with her I think that knowing more about her would take away from what she represented. Knowing that she was a divorced woman who had miscarried and who kept to herself was all that I think that we really needed. Like we discussed in class, she represented something that Josh lacked. That can be interpreted different ways, maybe she was supposed to represent his own repressed emotions, his lack of a real relationship with his parents, women in general, etc. His fixation on her I also think was indicative of his age at the time the story took place, most people as teenagers have a quasi-obsession with someone (a significant other, celebrity, etc.) and I don’t think that he was mature enough to realize that there was more to her than whatever was going on in his mind at the points that he saw her.