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Sorry for the Loss

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Bridget Keehan ”Sorry for the loss”, 2008

A butterfly is a free and a beautiful animal, which you can symbolize freedom and beauty. But some things can also have an evil and dark side. The yearning for freedom and the possibility of being together with family and friends when things happens appears in the short story “Sorry for the loss” by Bridget Keehan from 2008. In the short story we meet a chaplain named Evie and a young criminal named Victor Zamora.
Evie has to tell Victor Zamora that his Nan died the day before on a hospital, but the meeting with Victor turns out to be a bit strange.

Evie is a chaplain and she had worked in the prison for over a year, but she does not really like being there (p. 1, ll. 18-19). All the noises in the prison make her uncomfortable. When she has some time on her own, she uses the time to meditate and pray, because she is very religious. Evie is a very kind person, and she always try to under how the prisoners feel, when they are in there. At one time she even imagines Jesus being one of the prisoners (p.2, ll. 40-42), this shows us that Evie is a person who is very good at putting herself in other people’s situations. Because she is this nice person who is good at talking with people without judging on their past, makes her a very special person in a prison. But when she has to tell Victor about his Nan, she gets a bit scared, because she is nervous about his reaction, which also shows us that she is quite a fragile person. She doesn’t want to make Victor upset (p. 2, ll. 55-56). When Evie meets Victor she instantly imagine him as being her son, due to his young appearance. So Evie quickly feels sorry for him, because she think it’s sad that a young person like Victor has to spend his youth in a prison.

Victor is a catholic just like Evie, but he isn’t practicing Catholicism. He is more the exploring type of person who wants to discover new religions and new ways of seeing life. Victor is described as a relatively good-looking boy with olive skin and pretty eyes and a white smile (p. 4, l. 136). All the other prisoners have their cells totally filled with family photographs or picture of half naked women, but Victor’s is totally empty (p. 4, ll. 112-115)

When Evie tells Victor that his Nan has died he reacts a bit strange. Victor seems to care more about all the pigeons outside his cell than his Nan who just passed away. This is the first place in the story where the reader gets a different impression of Victor. In the beginning of the meeting we get an impression of Victor that he is a kind and down to earth person. But this weird situation changes our impression a bit. Suddenly he seems cold and not emotionally influenced by the family tragedy.

The short story is told by a third person narrator, with a limited omniscient point of view, because it is limited to Evie. We hear the story from Evie’s point of view. The reader only got access to the main characters thoughts and experiences, which in this story is Evie. All the other characters in the story are described by Evie, the main characters point of view. Due to the way that the story is told, makes it easier for the reader to get involved in the text and in some cases it makes it easier for the reader to relate to the text.
The narrator technique in the story is shown in the point of view. We experience all the things in the text through Evies eyes and the way she thinks, and that’s a way to make the reader feel the same as she does. It makes the reader to go on Evie’s side. The way that the reader gets dragged in to the story and her difficulties through the story makes the reader want everything to go well for Evie.

The narrator uses some symbols in the story. One symbol and a pretty important symbol are the pigeons sitting outside Victors cell. A bird normally symbolizes some kind of freedom. But in this story Victor feeds them and he gets their trust. When the pigeons trust him, he catches them and traps them (p. 4, ll. 128-129). This shows us, that we have to be careful with freedom, because it’s fragile. Suddenly it can be taken from us. Another important symbol in the story is the butterfly knife in the end of the story. The butterfly symbolizes Victor as a person. It’s beautiful on the outside, but hides something really cruel on the inside. The Victor we thought was a pretty and well speaking young man may at some point end up causing a lot of damage. Which he also did in school by killing another student for bullying him.

Bridget keehan uses many contrasts in the story. One of the big contrasts in the story is the contrast between the prisoners and the happy life with freedom outside the prison. In the prison there is no freedom and they are all trapped. The big window that is highly used by all the prisoners to get a view on the outside shows us, the contrast of being trapped or having a happy life with freedom. Another big contrast is between Evie and the environment of this awful prison. Evie is a kind person who always follows the rules. She is very religious and she has never tried something like heroin (p. 2, ll. 38-39). The prison has a very hard environment with no mercy and Evie is this little and very fragile person.

The main theme in the story is that you should not take freedom for granted, because suddenly you can lose it and end up in something really harsh. But there is also another theme and that is the difference between good and bad. How people can hide something really cruel and evil behind a facade that might be a beautiful human body.

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