"Sarah Cole: A Type of Love Story" Critique

Russell Banks’s short story “Sarah Cole: A Type of Love Story” follows the affair between a young, handsome, and rich man named Ron and an older, homely, and impoverished woman named Sarah. In a passive-aggressive way, Ron treats Sarah poorly throughout the affair, which ends badly. Yet the most interesting aspect of the story is Banks’s manipulation of the point of view, which shifts between third person and Ron’s first person view. However, it clear from the first sentence that even the third person perspective is Ron talking. “To begin, then, here is a scene in which I am the man and my friend Sarah Cole is the woman.” This shift in perspective comes to portray the most important traits of Ron’s character: shame and hubris.

            The story starts in the first person, and from here on out, a perspective shift to the third person indicates that Ron is ashamed of the scenario that follows. For instance, the third person returns when Ron talks about the first night he brings Sarah to his apartment. There are many awkward and shameful instances in this scene, such as Ron’s motive for bringing Sarah home with him. “Ron meets Sarah at Osgood’s, and after buying her three white Russians and drinking three scotches himself, he takes her back to his apartment in his car…for the sole purpose of making love to her.” This sentence describes a scene uncomfortably close to a date rape scenario. The fact that Ron has to get both himself and Sarah intoxicated before having sex indicates that his motives cannot be respectful. Ron is aware of this, and therefore slips into the third person, distancing himself from the action as though the man was someone else. Thus, he reveals his shame without meaning to.

            Yet, this third person perspective comes with another unexpected twist. Though Ron says in regards to his use of the third person, “I’m telling it this way because what I have to tell you now confuses me, embarrasses me, and makes me sad, and consequently, I’m likely to tell it falsely,” he becomes less trustworthy in the third person. For example, when he goes to Sarah’s apartment for the first time, he tells the reader, “Picture this. The man, tanned, limber, wearing red jogging shorts, Italian leather sandals, a clinging net tee shirt of Scandinavian design and manufacture, enters the apartment behind the woman, whose dough-colored skin, thick, short body, and homely, uncomfortable face all try, but fail, to hide themselves.” Here, Ron paints a beautiful and exaggerated image of himself and compares it with an exaggeration of Sarah’s ugliness. The hubris in this sentence is such that the reader has trouble trusting Ron’s description, even if it is detached. Ron emphasizes himself more when he looks at himself from a distance, as though he cannot resist himself despite his distasteful behavior. Even when Sarah kisses him, Ron’s focus remains himself. “…holding him by the head, kisses his mouth, rolls her torso against his, drops her hands to his hips and yanks him tightly to her, and goes on kissing him…” Ron emphasizes what Sarah does to him, not what he does to her. This shows his self-centered attitude, which prevents the reader from trusting him.

            Thus, the change in perspective reveals parts of Ron’s character that Ron could never communicate to the reader.

"Lust" Critique

Susan Minot’s short story “Lust” depicts a female, teenage narrator who experiences depression because of the amount of sexual activity in her life. For people with depression, time tends to feel simultaneously drawn out and compacted together. Therefore, to portray this depression, Minot manipulates the story’s time in multiple ways. First, she uses short paragraphs, some only one sentence long, and separates them with an extra space. These breaks function to slow the story down. They also emphasize a jump between thoughts and time within the narrative. Thus, the breaks become a pause in the narrator’s thoughts, as though she is taking a breath as she remembers the convoluted events of her sexual activity.

            Secondly, the thoughts are disordered, the subsequent paragraphs often not relating to one another. For instance, the following sentences are the topic sentences of three successive paragraphs:

            You wait till they come to you.

            The girls sit around in the common room and talk about boys, smoking their heads off.

            I thought the worst thing anyone could call you was a cock-teaser.

The paragraphs that follow each sentence remain on topic, but there is no transition between them. Again, the double spacing is used to indicate a jump in thought, showing that the narrator’s thoughts come at random.

            Finally, the narrator does not mention the boys she has been with in any significant order, suggesting that she does not remember who came when. For example, she first mentions Oliver on page two when she quotes her mother saying, “Oliver seems nice.” Oliver is not mentioned again until page five; however, she talks about eight other boys before returning to Oliver. This shows that she either does not remember or does not care about the order. Thus, time for this narrator has been warped, and Minot manipulates the text’s structure in order to complicate time for the reader.

"Sea Oak" Critique

George Saunders’ “Sea Oak,” a story depicting an impoverished, low-class family and their financial struggles, falls short in character development. First, the audience is never told Min and Jade’s age, although both are old enough to have (but failed to) graduate high school. Min says to the narrator, “You got your frigging diploma. We don’t. That’s why we have to do this GED shit.” They both have young children, yet this still leaves an age range between eighteen and the late-twenties. Additionally, the two characters are nearly identical, as one’s dialogue is indistinct from the other’s.

            “Are those them?” says Jade.

            “Those are them,” says Min.

            “I am freaking out,” says Jade.

            “I am totally freaking out,” says Min.

This dialogue is extremely repetitive, yet the repetition fails to do much for the overall story. The dialogue is not used to emphasize an important point in the story; it simply reiterates the characters’ stupidity. Granted, their stupidity is an important element because it illustrates their immaturity, which Aunt Bernie returns from the dead to help them overcome. However, their stupidity is over exaggerated at times. For instance, while they are studying for the GED, they “debate how many sides a triangle has.” This detail took me out of the story because I find it unbelievable that anyone can make it to the age eighteen and not know what a triangle is. Additionally, when they find Aunt Bernie dead on the sofa, Min says, “Touch her neck and see if you can feel that beating thing!” The term “beating thing” also seems like a gross exaggeration. If Min knows about the pulse in the neck, then she would know the proper word for it. Thus, Min and Jade’s characters are both exaggerated and underdeveloped.

            Secondly, I never get a clear understanding of the narrator’s character. He is not given a name, and while this is not immediately a fault, I feel that other less significant characters, such a Lloyd Betts, are developed more than the narrator. For example, the reader is not only given Lloyd’s name but also a physical description of him. We are told, “his hair’s gone thin” and he plays “solitaire in a hunched-over position that gives him big gut rolls.” Yet the narrator never offers a description of himself, which would be plausible considering the story begins with him describing his job as a stripper. He also talks about the rankings of Knockout, Honeypie, Adequate, and Stinker that each stripper is subject to. Though the narrator describes two other strippers, the only detail he offers about himself is that he is “a solid Honeypie/Adequate.”

            Finally, the narrator’s character is extremely passive, as he almost never speaks. His first dialogue quote comes on the fifth page, and it includes three words to his boss: “I’ll be back.” After this, he has only seven more short lines in a twenty-page story, thus never truly engaging in conversations with his family. More importantly, though, is his unimpassioned responses to the violence and gruesome happenings in the story. For instance, when Troy’s toy duck gets hit with a bullet, the narrator shows no signs of horror but simply leaves the house to “find the beak of Troy’s duck and fix it with Elmer’s.” This passivity is repeated throughout the story, such as when Aunt Bernie dies. While Min and Jade panic, he simply calls 911. I find his reactions to the story’s events to be too passive. Thus, the main characters in “Sea Oak” require more development. 

"Raw Deal" Workshop

The story is about two people, Micah and Emma, who meet at a house party and become partners in drug dealing. They sell to many different people: rehab patients, college students, cops, and Native Americans. One day while selling at a powwow, a Native American man tells them they’re ruining the community and slaps Emma. The conflict shakes Emma, and she quickly packs up. Three days later, when Micah goes looking for her after having not heard from her, he finds her dead body in a stream.

            I like the relationship between Emma and Micah, and because of this, I wish more time had been spent on developing their relationship. Perhaps emphasizing their experiences while selling over the people they sell to would help to flesh out their relationship. You might also consider starting the story after they’ve become friends. That way you have more time to develop a connection between them.

            On another note, I’m a bit confused about the end. Is the Native American man her killer? I found Emma’s murder to be rather sudden, yet she seems particularly unnerved after the Native American slaps her. Has she had a confrontation with him before? Perhaps consider adding a little more explanation about this.

"Memories of Dust" Workshop

The story is about two friends, Dave and Eli, who decide to explore an abandoned train depot one afternoon. They vandalize it a bit, and then an old man tells them to leave. Dave takes a crowbar and beats the old man senseless. He goes back to vandalizing the depot but suddenly has an asthma attack from the dust and begs Eli to go get his inhaler. Eli has the inhaler in his pocket, but decides not to give it to him. He walks back to the car with a strange sense that he has visited the depot a long time ago, though he never has been there before.

            I liked the details you included in the description of the train depot, such as the mural of the whale and the photograph. I wish these images had come back later in the story and been given more significance, like at the end where Eli has a strange sense of déjà vu. Also, I would like a little more detail about the town and its history. Did any major event happen at the depot long ago? Why are the boys so interested in visiting it? Why was the depot abandoned and why is the town deserted?

            Also, Dave’s violent assault on the old man troubled me. Why does he react so violently? The man simply tells Dave to leave, and beating him with a crowbar seems too extreme when the old man poses no real threat to Dave. Perhaps if Dave is seriously drunk or high, then his actions might seem more plausible, but this is still a very violent scene that does not seem to help the story progress.