“No love is greater than that of a father for His son” – This quote can be related to the short story crossing, which is written by Mark Slouka. The father (Narrator) has a past where he failed a lot on the family-front, now he is trying to make things better by trying to improve his bond to his son. A relationship between a son and his father is difficult to maintain when the sons father and mother are divorced. The custody is typically awarded to the mother of the child. How would a father behave when he get the chance to strengthen the bond between his son and himself?
Mark Slouka has used third-person limited omniscient narrator. This means a few things for the narrative technique. Typical for a third-person narrator is the use of pronouns like “he, she, they, them” which is shown in the short story Crossing. EX: “When the first car appeared he could see it from a long way off…” “When they came out of the trees and onto the stony beach…” Third-person limited omniscient narrator also means that the narrator knows everything but he does not necessarily disclose everything, which is to make the reader want to read the story to get all of the veiled parts of the story. The omniscient narrator is also shown here, because the reader get to know what he thinks.“… he thought, maybe – maybe he could make this right”
The short story takes place in the state Tacoma, Washington, USA. This can be seen in the very beginning of the short story, “It was raining as they drove out of Tacoma that morning” Tacoma is a mid-sized city in Washington. The Name “Quinault” is mentioned later on in the story. Quinault is a river in the state of Washington. The father takes his son to a place near the river Quinault. Mark Slouka is capable to show to symbolic in the setting itself or the weather to be more precisely. “ It was raining
