Behind The Hedge Fink Analysis

“no longer noticed the willows or the reflections of” their “running figures in the water” (pg. 6) as they had on the previous page. Thus, We can see that this “time” has greatly affected our main character, this time that is not measured in months or years, for numerical time has no affect on them. As the main character describes, “we sat there for an hour, maybe two, I don’t know, because it was then that time measured in the ordinary way stopped” (pg.6). Fink begins to use the scenery around the characters as an extension of this non-numerical sense of time as is seen in Behind The Hedge. Recalling a past memory the character does not recall the date or the exact time. She recalls the changing color of her room and the position of the flowers in her garden. …show more content…
For at this time it (this type of time that is not measured in months or years) is what drove the people. For when Fink describes the rhododendrons at the beginning of Night of Surrender she says they are “in full bloom, covered with pale violet flowers” and then towards the end of the story describes the rhododendrons as “already yellow and withered”. Just like in the changing color of the rhododendrons Fink’s main character in Night of Surrender, Ann is also going through a change of color, except hers is internal; hers is caused by the time. Ann’s life has been one-sided and she has been constantly surrounded by this time in the form of death and terror, which has caused her to develop a knack for lies and trickery. Thus, on the outside Ann comes off as having everything together, outwardly she is like the “rhododendrons in full bloom, covered with pale violet flowers” and it is this façade that Mike believes is Ann’s true self. For she lied to him about her past “with the life story” she “had patched together over the last three years” and “it moved him as it was meant to”, it created her façade to hide beneath (pg.