Charles D 'Ambrosio's The Point'

From the start of Charles D’Ambrosio’s “The Point”, a surreal and symbolic tone is set forth as the protagonist Kurt awakens from a nightmare in the middle of the night. In this dream, Kurt attends a circus with his father, and they are both holding helium balloons. However, while Kurt’s balloon is tied around his finger, his father “ties his around a stringbean and lost it.” Although upon first reading this scene does not have context for the reader, as the story unfolds, it becomes clear D’Ambrosio has a clear purpose behind including it: to lay the foundations of the story’s pedagogical theme. It is no secret that both balloons and circuses are synonymous with the quintessential childhood experience, and thus are symbols representing not only youth, but also the purity of mind and world-view associated with …show more content…
If the father loses his balloon in the opening scene, what sort of precedent or example is it setting for Kurt? Clearly it is not a positive one, as he perceives a dream, which by pure description is not anything very frightening, to be a nightmare. So much so that after waking up he “lay awake in the dark, tossing and turning,” It is here that D’Ambrosio not only showcases Kurt’s negative connotations with the thought of his father, but also how the fear and uncertainty of growing up is associated connected to him. Finally, by starting his short story in the midst of a dream, D’Ambrosio makes a deliberate effort to indicate that elements of the unconscious will play a part in the plot’s evolution. These themes, or loose ends, lying in the back of Kurt’s mind need to be addressed, and will continue to grow stronger as the night goes on until there is little distinction between what is really occurring and what is imagined by the