User:Letlg5d/sandbox

The Curse of Indecision The Curse is a subtlely supernatural short story written in 1988 by Andre Dumus. At barely four pages, it concerns with the dilema most people face when they enconter somethign morally and legally wrong in progress and have a chance to stop it. Dumus uses the literary neccesities to weave a tapestry of a tale. The plot of the story is a little subtle at first, one is introduced to Mitchell, a bar worker who is pretty happy, he married a divorced women and adopted her two teenagers, they are mostly normal. Yet in the very commencement, one sees that something is very wrong, one is told that Mitchell has been "left as an old man", he was only 49, but now "in his 70s.". As the story progresss, the reader is made aware of what "the curse":Mitchell recounts to his wife that a young girl walked in and was promtly raped by five punks, for which he felt he should have stopped them. When he returns to work, the curse takes full affect, he sees everyone differently, and is greatly saddened by the events that have traumatized him. The point of view is third person limited objective: Dumus tells everything from a mostly neutral point of view, he talks about what happens to Mitchell with no interjections. He intentionally withholds information for a dramatic effect. Since this type of narratation is the most common, it fits in with the type of story, and the fact that it could happen to anyone.

At the very beginning of the story, the reader is treated with details about Mitchel, mostly physical. One is imbibed with the fact Mitchel is pretty darn normal: he is 49, he is not fat, he is a normal height. He remains this way throughout the book, but Dubus says in the onset that he feels like an elderly, an "exaustion that could not be overcome with sleep and rest". He seems to be a kind man, he loves his wife and "children", he clearly cared about the victim in his bar. Dubus used both expostition and indirect charactization to create a likable and realistic character for The Curse.

The setting in The Curse is pretty mundane: the first location is some bar near the boardwalk of a beach. The following location is Mitchell's home, which appears to an ordianary place, nothing special about. The year of the story is the "present", which from Dubus' perspective was 1988, a time whne the internet was emmerging and the Communist nations were shaking violently with change. Because this story takes place during the reign of Ronald Reagan, the tale takes place during this mystical Golden Age, everyone has plenty of money, Civil rights are perfect as is everything else, this is why Dubus' readers would have been horrified by the rape scene, because of the disrepect towards women (unless the readers were Liberal, they would probably enjoy it).

Andre Dubus' writing style is actually very similar to Ernest Hemingway's style. He states facts, which in some ways break the classic rule of "show, don't tell". He lists all the facts about a location, yet he still uses his words to imply details about places or people. "Mitchell looked away, at the front door. He had put the chairs upside down on the table."-Paragraph 2. Here, Dubus tells the reader what is going on, without obfuscating the meaning with needless adjectives or purple prose. This creates an easy read, one that is fit for a short story and will not confuse a reader.

The tone is grim. It is marred by gloom and sadness. Dubus, of course, needed to let the reader know the mental anguish Mitchel feels. To do this, he reiterates the fact that Mitchell fills older and the details of the rape that he witnessed. The tone is absolutly perfect for the story, as it is a gloomy, regretful reflection of past events. Is would not have worked if Dubus described everything in a cheerful manner or with joy in his prose, it has to be grim. This helps play a role into the theme of guilt.

The overarching theme of the story is simply guilt. Mitchell feels guilty because he did not assist the girl until after she had been raped mercalessly. As a result, he can not view anything in the same light anymore, he sees everyone in his bar differently, and he gets the inkling that they do the same unto him. He still has lastbacks to that night weeks after the event, hallucanating that she and the bikers are still in his bar, remembering every puny detail.

Andre Dubus crafted a clever tome where he shows an averge Joe struggling with guilt after a woman is raped right in front of him. Although he penned this story almost 30 years ago, it is hardly less poingant to this day.