Many people often seek distraction from the small problems, which occur every day in our daily lives. To avoid these problems they use bad excuses like drinking or simply avoiding any kinds of conflicts. You can call it a defence mechanism so they prevent the feelings of hopelessness, guilt or feeling like a burden. In generally people are very yellow, they often tend to run away from their problems instead of facing them. Some people are even going as far as being suicidal, because they think it’s the only way to escape these problems. This is what the main character in the short story “Yellow” which is written by Peter Carty struggles with. In the story, we meet the main character Jon who is in the thirties He suffers from overweight but is in good physical condition for someone in his age. He is a second-string writer on a London listings magazine. He travels to Egypt, because the magazine wants him to write about scuba diving. Already in the start of the story, it is clear that he is afraid of confrontations. In the episode where the Egyptian porters tries to wrench his bags away, he shakes hands with each one and tip them with crumpled currency so they will go away. His relationship with his girlfriend isn’t going so well which is emphasized on page 3 lines 53-55: “They hadn’t paid for his girlfriend to come, either. Mind you, the way things were going that was properly a plus. The silence between them had multiplied, then lengthened into an empty continuum.” He doesn’t want to have a confrontation with his girlfriend, he would rather just give up, because he thinks it will not be solved. When he is safe in the hotel room, he starts drinking. Which is one of the common themes in the story. When something is hard or difficult, he drinks to soothe the nerves. He hates everything active and sporty, so of course it’s not his own choice to go scopa diving. It is actually, because none of the colleagues would go. Jon is convinced that he will get fired soon and that his relationship with his girlfriend wouldn’t last very longer.
Jon is very anxious about scoba diving, he starts to panic when he completes the form about his health in case of his death or injury. “What the fuck was he getting himself into this time?” He has a fear of dying, and it’s properly not the first time he has tried something he doesn’t like or is barrier-braking. Hid problem is also that drinking alcohol doesn’t help as it normally do. Which is emphasized on page 3 line 57: “He poured more gin, but no matter how much he swallowed it was never enough.” He is on a high panic level when he is scuba diving, and envies Brian because he is so calm the whole time. The first time they scoba dive in the sea, he has an inner monologue about dying. That drowning isn’t a bad way to die, but he still sucks on the mouthpiece, so he can get as much air as possible into his lungs. Just before, he takes out his mouthpiece and insets Brian’s spare mouthpiece. He looks at the ocean and thinks about how peaceful it is and how easy you could disappear into the emptiness. His life is filled with emptiness and he feels like he doesn’t belong and that nobody would miss him. Even when he at this point has mentioned suicide a couple of times, he is still too yellow, because just the moment after Brian gives him the mouthpiece, and he can’t breathe, he panics and swim to the top to get air. He scoba dives the next day because he doesn’t want to be a coward and in the end he battles with his fear of dying and wants to show them all that he isn’t yellow at all.
He often have a stream of consciousness and it’s very hard on him because it’s calling him yellow, yellow, yellow or when he talks to Berto and admit he is nervous under the water and above it. It says Yip, Yip, and Yip, which means he complains like a little child. He doesn’t want to be a coward, but he knows deep down that he is. However he can’t escape form the problems he faces when he is scope diving and for a while in his life he is making some decisions. In addition, his view of outlook on life is very negative, which is emphasized on page 3 line 59: “The condemned man didn’t eat a hearty breakfast.” He meets trouble halfway and is sad in his life. Jon is expects the trip to fail and he then will end up dead. At some point, he is afraid of failing and to live his life.
He is literally drowning his sorrows and problems with alcoholic drinks. In the end, he drowns, because he doesn’t want to be yellow. Instead of alcohol, he drinks the water and it helps, he reaches a point where he can get enough and the water is better than the alcohol.
The narrator in the short story “Yellow” is a third person narrator with a limited point of view because you only know what Jon thinks and feels. The narrator feels with Jon, and really wants the reader to feel Jon’s pain and only describes the story from Jon’s point of view. The short story also starts in media res, because we don’t know anything of Jon’s life before he comes to Egypt.
To sum up, we all have problems in our lives, but it is different how people solve these problems. Many people are good at making bad excuses, but they will just build up and the problems will get bigger. This is what the main character does in the short story “Yellow”; he uses the defence mechanism, alcohol. However, at some point it isn’t helping, so in the end he decides not to be yellow and commits suicide.
