...Stolpestad By William Lychack Sometimes people can get overwhelmed with a feeling of stagnation. The feeling that whatever we do is for nothing and that everything we do is in vain. The short story "Stolpestad" from 2008 is written by William Lychack, and it is dealing with the feeling of stagnation and feeling useless and impotent. In the story we meet the protagonist Stolpestad who is a police officer, husband and father of two. After his shift has ended on a Saturday night, the mother of a nine year old boy calls him to go out on one last job for the night. He arrives at the address and he is asked to put down a wounded dog. Later that night, Stolpestad is approached at his doorstep by the little boy and his father. They came to tell him that the dog had survived Stolpestad’s attempt to kill it, and that they instead had to call someone else to do off the wounded dog. At first, this story might seem a bit odd and the way it is told makes it hard for the reader to understand. However, the themes and the message of the story are very relatable to all of us and the stagnation that we can all feel at times. In the very beginning of the story, the reader becomes familiar with the environment and the setting of the story. Lychack describes, in the first line of the text, how the mood in the story is; “Another one of those long slow lazy afternoons of summer (…)” (l. 1) this is not only a description of how the day is moving very slowly, but it also describes how Stolpestad...
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...Stolpestad By William Lychack Do you ever feel like you are going nowhere? Like your life is stuck in stagnation. Getting out of bed in the morning, going to work and returning home to bed just to rise and repeat the exact same routine the next day and the day after that. The routine becomes so familiar that it feels like the days goes by in a blur. It does not feel like you even exist in your body anymore. That feeling is the theme of the short story, “Stolpestad”, by William Lychack. The short story is named after the main character, Stolpestad, who is a police officer. He is called out to an injured dog and has to put the dog down for a boy and his mother. Late at night, the father to the boy shows up at Stolpestad´s house and tells him that the dog did not die. “The coffee shops, the liquor stores, laundromats, police, fire, gas stations to pass – this is your life, Stolpestad.” This is all there is. A small town and a boring life. That is Stolpestad´s life. The story takes place on a Saturday afternoon and evening in summer. It is clouded but never breaking into rain, a symbol of Stolpestad´s life. The clouds is a metaphor for how dull and blur his life seems, never changing into rain or letting the sun shine throw. As long as the weather stays the same, his life stays the same. On paper, Stolpestad´s lives the perfectly and comfortably life with the perfect family. “Wife and pair of boys waiting dinner for you…” The traditional family, living the suburban life. Comfortable...
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...Analysis and interpretation of “Stolpestad” By Jeppe Bender Lassen In "Stolpestad" from 2008 the author, William Lychack, deals with life in the postmodern society through his main character Stolpestad. A middle-aged police officer not able to settle in the chaotic and confusing postmodern world. What starts out as a routine task of putting down a wounded dog ends up becoming a journey for spiritual awakening, as Stolpestad comes to some life-changing realizations. The story is set in a dull and gloomy town in which Stolpestad grew up and has inhabited ever since. The narrator provides several signs that the town is a place almost completely desolated from excitement. This is for example evident in lines 3-4: “…like a clock ticking all these bored little pent-up streets and mills and tenements away.” Life of the town is decaying. Nothing seems to be done to prevent this from happening. As goes for the case of Stolpestad’s life. Stolpestad leads a quiet and trivial life as a police officer – a job in which the main constituents of a daily schedule are insignificant routine tasks. To fill out the remaining parts of his life he hangs out at bars finding comfort for the lack of substance in his life at the bottom of endless pints of beer. One might almost describe Stolpestad’s trivial life as a never-ending déjà vu, where the days are just passing by indifferently. When Stolpestad is called out to the boy with the injured dog however, he suddenly gets an opportunity of moving...
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...consumed by a view on humanity in revolt.” Ex. 2, indledning med udgangspunkt i en almen erfaring: “Most people have an everyday routine. In most cases this is comfortable and gives you a feeling of structure and makes it easier to cope with life. However, there is a fine line between a well-planned and secure everyday life and a life of boredom and predictability that mechanically takes its course and distances you from life. This is exactly what the story “Stolpestad” by William Lychack from 2008 is about. It is about how the narrator’s day-to-day routine is so predictable that his life has become a condition of numbness.” Ex. 3, indledning med udgangspunkt i et citat fra teksten ““[…] This is your life, Stolpestad.” (p. 2, l. 5). That is it, deal with it. A clearly negative second person narrator takes the reader through the life of the policeman Stolpestad; a non-motivated and truly stagnated husband and father from a small town in America. Stolpestad’s life is just passing by, and he is letting it. William Lychack takes us through the inner monologue of Stolpestad’s mind in the short story of the same name, written in 2008, describing Stolpestad’s battle of facing up to the truth of his life, sadly failing, losing his battle to Goliath symbolized in having to put down a dog for a young boy”. Ex. 4,...
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...Stolpestad In his short story, “Stolpestad” from 2008, William Lychack writes about the life of a police man, and how easy you can get stuck in life. Through a second person narrator technique, he highlights uncomfortable situations, loss of identity and the feeling of being stuck in life, showing that one most do what one likes, otherwise, you’ll lose in life In the short story, “Stolpestad”, is it clear that Stolpestad is stuck in his life. “The coffee shops, the liqoue stores, laundromats, police, fire, gas stations to pass – this is your life, Stolpestad”. Furthermore, Stolpestad seems to be genuine depressed as he says to himself “this is your life, Stolpestad” which shows that Stolpestad’s not where he wants to be in life as he has to end the sentence white “Stolpestad” as if he was not listening to himself. “As if you have seen or imagined or been through all of this before, or will be through it all again” The fact that Stolpestad feels like he has experienced things that he haven’t even tried yet, shows how much he has given up on life. Stolpestad’s sad view on life probably is a mix of his life going in circles, and the fact that he is constantly experiencing unpleasant things that just repeats and repeats itself throughout his life: “Your whole life spent along the same sad streets (..) as you pull around the house, as if you’ve seen or imagined or been through all of this before, or will be through it all again, over and over”. Moreover, instead of going home to...
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...Stolpestad Many people today are caught up in their everyday life and routines. They get up in the morning, go to their jobs and come back in the evening to eat with their families. This is a typically day routine, which many of us can not escape from. Because it can be very difficult to break these habits, and make new and more challenging and self-realization, many people are stuck with the life they have. In the short-story “Stolpestad” by William Lychack, you hear about a certain police officer’s daily life. You get the feeling that he is a very normal middle-aged man, who lives with his wife and two children. His daily routine is always the same, and he just drives around town all day long without any specific happenings. It sounds very boring indeed, but it also seems like he has settled down with it and accepted that that's the way the cookie crumbles. The first thing you notice, as a reader is the very special way the story is told. The story is told in third person, seen from the outside in present tense. The way he is referring to himself as “you” seems very powerful, because it gives the reader the impression of how life is in his exact position. “Maybe you’ll take that glass of water after all, you say…”. Sentences like this are very common in the story. It feels like the narrator is creating a de ja vu in your head. He can forecast what will happen next, and knows how “you” will react next. He is almost saying, “I told you so” to himself...
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...A: Stolpestad by William Lychack The story short is about a local police officer named Stolpestad which is probably his surname. He has been called out to a house, where he meets a woman and a boy. Their dog is sick, and the woman asks him to shoot the dog, that he does. After work he goes to a bar, and gets a call from his wife about some people at his home wants to talk with him. When he comes home, the boy and his father is there to thanks him, but it doesn’t sound like they mean it, and they tell about how the dog still was a live when they dug a hole later at night. The father is angry and the police officer fells guilty. The story takes place in a small town with coffee shops, liquor stores, Laundromats, police, fire, and gas stations. There’s not much to do as police officer, especially not on a Saturday. The police officer has lived there in his whole life, and he thinks the town is sad and boring, because it’s the same streets he’d seen all his life. The town is probably in America, because of the police officer get to shoot a dog instead of vet and I think it is far away from the big cities, maybe out in the country. The story takes place in modern time, because the police officer get a call over the radio, and it was not possible back in the old days. The plot takes place during the summer, but even that is described in a sad way. Normally summer would be described in a good way, but summer in this town isn’t even good. It is described “sun never burning through the...
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