Evie was afraid that Victor was huge, savage and ferocious man, but she discovers that he is in fact a ‘slight, good-looking boy, who appears barely old enough to be in an adult jail’ (4.75). Surprisingly, he also voluntarily plays Cordelia, a woman in Shakespeare’s play King Lear. Victor is the straight opposite of what she had expected.
She feared that Victor was a huge, brutal man, but in reality he is a slight, good-looking boy (l.75) who willingly plays a …show more content…
The title Sorry for the Loss can be interpreted as Evie saying sorry for the loss to Victor, because he has lost his grand mother. But also, if Evie develops in this short story, it can be interpreted as the loss of her naive perspective on life or it can be interpreted as the readers’ new perspective on prison life: It is easier to believe that all inmates are evil, but the text leads us to believe that some inmates are actually kind.
The conflict between expectations and reality is stressed by the use of contrasts. The prison guard is a large man with a skin disease, while Victor is a beautiful boy. Evie fears that Victor is twofaced, but actually the prison guard is the one that is twofaced: He switches from officious officer to avuncular guardian.