In any piece of work, different lenses allow the reader to assume different perspectives of the work and therefore acquire unique meanings. Pamela Zoline chose to write the short story “The Heat Death of the Universe” in a manner that allows the reader to choose their own lens to read with. For instance, the short story can be read as a play about the progression of Sarah Boyle’s suicidal thoughts to reveal more about her character. The aspect of this work being a play is highlighted with Sarah constantly creating characters from the objects around her. This is first seen when it is admitted that “sometimes she labels objects with their names, or with false names” (15). This reveals the creativity of Sarah and the role objects play in her
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She wants to find the meaning of life and change the world. This is conveyed in the fact that “sometimes Sarah’s dreams are of heroic girth, a new symphony using laboratories of machinery and all invented instruments… a series of paintings… a new novel” (44). Although this may not seem completely unrealistic for an average human being, it is for Sarah. She wants to achieve this goal through art or creativity when she clearly holds a mathematical mind rather than an artistic one. It is stated that “Sarah Boyle thinks of music as the form articulation of the passage of time” (18). This illustrates how she thinks of music as math, not expression, and therefore further solidifies the notion that she is of a mathematical nature rather than an artistic one. In addition, Sarah even describes cereal box in mathematical terms beyond any average person would even think of (5). Considering her strong formulaic mindset, this goal is highly unrealistic for Sarah to …show more content…
She day dreams about the end of the world. Zoline specifically writes, “She thinks of the end of the world by ice. She thinks of the end of the world by water. She thinks of the world by nuclear war” (41-43). There is importance placed in the fact that the beginning segment is repeated each time and each thought receives its own paragraph. They hold a significance: she is constantly think about destruction. Moreover, there is another importance in the fact that “she thinks of the end of the world by nuclear war” (43). Sarah had previously described a war between her body and mind (35). This alludes to the fact that she thinks about the fight between her body and mind leading to her own death: also known as
She wants to find the meaning of life and change the world. This is conveyed in the fact that “sometimes Sarah’s dreams are of heroic girth, a new symphony using laboratories of machinery and all invented instruments… a series of paintings… a new novel” (44). Although this may not seem completely unrealistic for an average human being, it is for Sarah. She wants to achieve this goal through art or creativity when she clearly holds a mathematical mind rather than an artistic one. It is stated that “Sarah Boyle thinks of music as the form articulation of the passage of time” (18). This illustrates how she thinks of music as math, not expression, and therefore further solidifies the notion that she is of a mathematical nature rather than an artistic one. In addition, Sarah even describes cereal box in mathematical terms beyond any average person would even think of (5). Considering her strong formulaic mindset, this goal is highly unrealistic for Sarah to …show more content…
She day dreams about the end of the world. Zoline specifically writes, “She thinks of the end of the world by ice. She thinks of the end of the world by water. She thinks of the world by nuclear war” (41-43). There is importance placed in the fact that the beginning segment is repeated each time and each thought receives its own paragraph. They hold a significance: she is constantly think about destruction. Moreover, there is another importance in the fact that “she thinks of the end of the world by nuclear war” (43). Sarah had previously described a war between her body and mind (35). This alludes to the fact that she thinks about the fight between her body and mind leading to her own death: also known as