Feedback on the Short Stories

Meredith Huggins

Mr. Taylor

English 131-FJT05

14 October 2010

Feedback on the Short Stories

This semester I have really enjoyed most of the stories that we have been reading. I love short fiction; it's probably one of my favorite things to read, so I was excited about the stories anyways. Some of the stories I did not enjoy however, such as "The Red Convertible" by Louise Erdrich. I didn't really enjoy this story, because it was too depressing for me. It was sad how Henry felt like his only way out was to just give up and let the river consume him. It was very depressing so I didn't enjoy it as much as the others. Even though these are also somewhat depressing, my favorite stories had to be "Death of a Traveling Salesman" by Eudora Welty, "Hunter's in the Snow" by Tobias Wolff, and "Emergency" by Denis Johnson. Even though you assume that in both "Hunter's in the Snow" and "Death of a Traveling Salesman," that both main characters end up dead at the end of the story, but it never exactly tells you specifically if they die or not, they just leave you to wonder. I really like how the ending is sord of up to us. Do we want Kenny to find his way to the hospital in "Hunters in the Snow"? It had a since of kharma to the story and I really enjoyed that.

I guess if I did have to pick a top favorite story it would have to be "Hunter's in the Snow." One theme that I pulled from this story is the theme of coldness. Not only is it loaded with imagery of the main characters, Kenny, Frank and Tub, being hunters in the snow; but also the way they treat one another is very cold. From the beginning of the story you find that Kenny is the alpha male of the pack of guys. He often puts down the others