When the black clammy hands of death close around your throat, you usually don’t see it coming, and neither does your loved ones. Everyone reacts to grief differently: Some cry, some scream and some don’t say a thing. Growing up we learn that grief is supposed to be loud and obvious, so when someone doesn’t seem to feel a thing, does that mean that they don’t care? This question among themes as death and grief, are the main focus in the short story “The Stone Boy” written by Gina Berriault in 1988, where the protagonist is in conflict with himself.
The main protagonist who is a third-person limited narrator tells the story. This means that the whole story is affected by Arnold’s thoughts and emotions, which makes it easier for the reader …show more content…
The first shift happens when he talks to his father and uncle in the yard, “…he had felt his father and the others set their cold, turbulent silence against him.”(p. 3, l. 102), it is obvious that no one dares to say what they are all thinking; that Arnold killed Eugie on purpose.
The one that breaks the silence is the sheriff, who is debating whether Arnold is simply stupid or if he really is a coldblooded killer, “…the most reasonable guys are the mean ones. They don’t feel nothing.”(p. 4, l. 156). The sheriff is right about one thing in his observation: Arnold doesn’t feel anything, but it might not be because he is mean, he has just become numb, or as the author indicates in her title, he is a “stone boy”.
He is trying to fight against people’s perception of him and who he really is, “…they would see that he was only Arnold and not the person the sheriff thought he was.”(p. 5, l. 182), but hearing the men around him talk; he just might be starting to believe …show more content…
This is also where the first crack in his relationship with his mother occurs. Later that evening, she completely rejects him during dinner, “…curving her fingers over her eyes so as not to see him.”(p. 4, l. 172).
In the night when he tries to reach out to her, she rejects him, which makes him cover up his last bit of “nakedness”. So when she tries to reach out to him in the morning, he shuts her out, but his body betrays his words, “…his legs trembling form the fright his answer gave him.”(p. 7, l. 265). This shows that he is in an internal conflict with himself, and that maybe he is afraid of the fact that he just might have become the person people think he is.
Just because you can’t hear someone’s heart beating, doesn’t mean it doesn’t. It just means that you are not trying hard enough to hear it. This seems to be the case in this story, where the family of Arnold thinks he has a heart of stone, just because it has been stopped momentarily by grief. And isn’t it much easier to stay dead, than to fight against the heavy blanket of numb oblivion? It is a heart breaking realization that some might come to a point like Arnold, where you loose yourself in the image of who people think you
The main protagonist who is a third-person limited narrator tells the story. This means that the whole story is affected by Arnold’s thoughts and emotions, which makes it easier for the reader …show more content…
The first shift happens when he talks to his father and uncle in the yard, “…he had felt his father and the others set their cold, turbulent silence against him.”(p. 3, l. 102), it is obvious that no one dares to say what they are all thinking; that Arnold killed Eugie on purpose.
The one that breaks the silence is the sheriff, who is debating whether Arnold is simply stupid or if he really is a coldblooded killer, “…the most reasonable guys are the mean ones. They don’t feel nothing.”(p. 4, l. 156). The sheriff is right about one thing in his observation: Arnold doesn’t feel anything, but it might not be because he is mean, he has just become numb, or as the author indicates in her title, he is a “stone boy”.
He is trying to fight against people’s perception of him and who he really is, “…they would see that he was only Arnold and not the person the sheriff thought he was.”(p. 5, l. 182), but hearing the men around him talk; he just might be starting to believe …show more content…
This is also where the first crack in his relationship with his mother occurs. Later that evening, she completely rejects him during dinner, “…curving her fingers over her eyes so as not to see him.”(p. 4, l. 172).
In the night when he tries to reach out to her, she rejects him, which makes him cover up his last bit of “nakedness”. So when she tries to reach out to him in the morning, he shuts her out, but his body betrays his words, “…his legs trembling form the fright his answer gave him.”(p. 7, l. 265). This shows that he is in an internal conflict with himself, and that maybe he is afraid of the fact that he just might have become the person people think he is.
Just because you can’t hear someone’s heart beating, doesn’t mean it doesn’t. It just means that you are not trying hard enough to hear it. This seems to be the case in this story, where the family of Arnold thinks he has a heart of stone, just because it has been stopped momentarily by grief. And isn’t it much easier to stay dead, than to fight against the heavy blanket of numb oblivion? It is a heart breaking realization that some might come to a point like Arnold, where you loose yourself in the image of who people think you