Tobias Wolff’s short story “Bullet in the brain” is written as though it was a film and this rhetorical manner evokes a visual, a sonorous, and a neurotic feeling. Yet, even though it seems like a movie, there is a realism to it. Wolff generates a sad ending from the most ordinary thing a human could be doing and this is expressed through the eyes of the story’s narrator that knows how to bring the important details to light. The point of view greatly influences the construction of the story and its meaning; by means of different stylistic approaches, the story’s point of view gradually unfolds and reveals that behind the main character’s harsh personality is hidden a sensitive side.
Wolff is known to be a minimalist writer that is “concerned …show more content…
Not only it is like watching a film, but the fact that a dead character can have its last memory describe like he was still alive causes the story to lean on the imaginative side. On page 853, Ander is said to remember the first time he felt roused by two words and how it marked him forever and made him who he was. It brings a sort of hope that he might not have died, because after enlightening that he used to be a gentle boy in his past days, there is a sort of need to believe that all of this was a dream. However, the imaginative half of the text ends there and reality crashes all hopes and in the last paragraph, the narrator confirms his fatal death by saying: “The bullet is already in the brain; it won’t be outrun forever, or charmed to a halt. In the end, it will do its work and leave the trouble skull behind...” (853). The other thing that brings in the realism in the short story is the simple fact that Anders was an ordinary man who had to go to the bank and coincidently was there at the moment of a robbery. It is the traditional situation of the “in the wrong place at the wrong …show more content…
While Tobias Wolff chose to leave some things unsaid in the text, Ancken decided to change it by giving more information on how Anders got to the bank, the interaction between the writers critiqued by Anders and Anders, and the detailed explication of why there is a repetition of “they is”, “they is”, “they is” at the end of the last paragraph. Also, by way of sound, time is put as the focus of the film and divulge the theme that death is only a matter of time. The disposition may be different, but the main idea is present and the text may not explicitly talk about time, but time is obviously a theme that is present, and this by the recollection of old days from Anders and the description of the bullet’s pace that was described as “[…] 900 feet per second, a pathetically sluggish, glacial pace.”
Wolff is known to be a minimalist writer that is “concerned …show more content…
Not only it is like watching a film, but the fact that a dead character can have its last memory describe like he was still alive causes the story to lean on the imaginative side. On page 853, Ander is said to remember the first time he felt roused by two words and how it marked him forever and made him who he was. It brings a sort of hope that he might not have died, because after enlightening that he used to be a gentle boy in his past days, there is a sort of need to believe that all of this was a dream. However, the imaginative half of the text ends there and reality crashes all hopes and in the last paragraph, the narrator confirms his fatal death by saying: “The bullet is already in the brain; it won’t be outrun forever, or charmed to a halt. In the end, it will do its work and leave the trouble skull behind...” (853). The other thing that brings in the realism in the short story is the simple fact that Anders was an ordinary man who had to go to the bank and coincidently was there at the moment of a robbery. It is the traditional situation of the “in the wrong place at the wrong …show more content…
While Tobias Wolff chose to leave some things unsaid in the text, Ancken decided to change it by giving more information on how Anders got to the bank, the interaction between the writers critiqued by Anders and Anders, and the detailed explication of why there is a repetition of “they is”, “they is”, “they is” at the end of the last paragraph. Also, by way of sound, time is put as the focus of the film and divulge the theme that death is only a matter of time. The disposition may be different, but the main idea is present and the text may not explicitly talk about time, but time is obviously a theme that is present, and this by the recollection of old days from Anders and the description of the bullet’s pace that was described as “[…] 900 feet per second, a pathetically sluggish, glacial pace.”