Opgave A
...Divorced, Beheaded, Survived – by Robin Black
This is a short story written in a unique and curious setting, allowing you to see the world of an ordinary family whose lives have been affected by the deaths of their friends more than is fair. The story grasps some of the problems that death can bring upon a family which an average person may, or may not be aware of. Below, I will analyze and interpret Robin Black’s curiously written short story about the unnamed narrator and how the impact of her younger days has affected her and her son’s life. The short story is from 2010. The short story,’ …Divorced, Beheaded, Survived’, is about an unnamed mother, who reflects her life as a past-tense narrator throughout the whole text. The story is based upon the events of her brother’s death and the acts they played with their friends shortly before. The story’s structure is a bit “jumpy” but also wonderfully flowing. Even though the story takes place over roughly 30 years, the reader won’t find it difficult to keep track of the time. The structure itself is quite interesting, since it reveals the age of some persons beneath the lines. For example, she mentions the ‘director’ of the acts, Johnny, was an 11-years-old boy – a year younger than her brother, and a year older than herself: “Johnny was a year younger than Terry, a year older than me” (Page 1, line 29). Not much later, while mentioning the inevitability of her brother’s death, she says that the (almost) present time she’s in is 30 years later: “but now, thirty years later” (Page 2, line 50). The age of the mother is a bit curious and I will analyze that later. Even though the tragic events of her brother’s death thirty years earlier still affect the narrator, Robin Black has decided to avoid a huge climax at the end of the story. Where the last lines in such a story most often reveal a secret or a