First-Person Fiction

There is a lot more to this story than there may seem at first glance, and I really enjoyed the small complexities that could be found within if you looked at it a bit closer than face value. The narrator believes that this story is merely her recollection of the things she enjoys about the small, poor town of Alna, but I think this story is more about the life that the narrator missed out on or could have had, and her secret jealousy of the lives of those that have been more successful than she has. Although I think that the narrator believes that the town of Alna has its perks, she likes it mostly because compared to the people there and the zombies that sell her drugs, she is a much more successful person. The narrator expresses her desire to be a better teacher, stating “Each time seniors had me sign their yearbooks, I wrote, “Good luck!” then stared off into space, thinking of all the wisdom I could impart but didn’t” (pg 119). I think that this sentence summarizes the majority of this story, because there are multiple occasions where the narrator thinks there was more they could have done, but they decided against acting. The main instance when this happens is when the pregnant teenager is bleeding and the narrator acts as though nothing has happened until there is a medical emergency. The negligence towards others in need the narrator exhibits many times over demonstrates a massive character flaw in the narrator, which I think may be due to the fact that she seems to be rebelling against her family by withdrawing from them and society as a whole. The narrators’ perspective in this story is many years after her first summer in Alna, when she moved into her summer home and first met Clark. We learn this near the beginning of the story, as she describes all the work that Clark has done on the house during previous summers. Although what has set this narrative in motion in the first place is a much more difficult question to answer, I believe that the narrator thinks they have a story to tell by recounting their habits in their own little town where they feel as though they are on top. The narrator also mentions that they think they are dying, and telling their story would be the perfect way to describe to a younger audience what happens when you make the choices this narrator did. I sensed a bit of regret in this story, but it wasn’t very strong throughout the narrative. This leads readers to believe that although the narrator thinks that their life isn’t what they wanted it to be originally, it is still better than the majority of people’s lives in Alna. The narrator masks their own regrets by pointing out the harsh flaws in other characters, such as the old women at the garage sale. However, even though the narrator in this story is very callous and has some regrets about the course of their life, their stubbornness prevents them from changing.