Week Seven Post

(I spoke with you after class and explained why my post would be submitted after I got home; my internet was down and, once brought to school, my flash-drive wouldn't convert Apple text to Microsoft Word)

This week we continued our look into flash fiction and read When They Spoke, When My Father Was in Prison, You’re Going to Miss Me When I’m Gone, Drive and Mammalian Observation Project 1: Subject J, in addition to Smart Surprise in Flash Fiction. These stories helped to illustrate several aspects of fiction. In You’re Going to Miss Me When I’m Gone we are left with a clever example of how point of view, or the orientation of the narration, can allow us a new method in which we imply a greater theme. In this story, the life of a kitchen knife is described and provides insight to how the author, who takes a third-person omniscient vantage point, feels inside. Through the explanative writing about the environment in which the knife lives, the readers are left with a general understanding that the author, who owns the knife, is unhappy and patiently going through life waiting for his opportunity to kill himself. This concept is further illuminated by the images created by the author about cutting into an overripe tomato, having to slice swiftly not chop at it and how the tomato “bleeds” once this is done properly.

As we read in Smart Surprise in Flash Fiction, it is the language and the image that this language creates that makes fictional stories, like the story of the knife translating into the authors depression and thoughts of suicide, so effective and enjoyable. The other readings helped to demonstrate other methods of effective fictional writing. For instance, the first-person narration of When My Father Was in Prison instills a sense of sympathy in the reader. As we read this story from the boy’s perspective we are left with several images that make the story memorable since we can almost put ourselves in his shoe. The conflicts that he encounters spark a certain amount of subjective emotion in me as I read his conflicts.

I enjoyed this week’s analyses into flash fiction. To be honest, at first I thought this section of the class was going to be boring. I mean, when I learned how to read years ago this is how I did it; reading short stories. However, after going through the semester and reading poetry and then coming to this segment with a critical eye at the image and language of the short stories, I found it more challenging than I thought. And in addition to the challenge, I enjoyed how we could really create characters and use the poetic techniques to illustrate their conflict.