"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.