A Bloodthirsty Man

“Just like that” is a short story written by Michael Richards. The main topic in this story is the chance from boy to man. A boy and a man drive out to the wild to shoot some kangaroo, the boy hopes that shooting a kangaroo would make him a man, so he shoots more than 5 of them, but the boy does not want to shoot kangaroos. But he has to so he can pass the man’s test of manhood. He develops throughout the text and becomes a “man”

Death is new to the boy, who is surprised by how easy it seemed when the man killed the first
Kangaroos, it was exactly like the man had told him ”dead just like that” (p.1 l.1). So when the days starts are the boy immature. “The soft hair on his legs where soon matted and tangled” (p.25 1. 4). He has soft hair on his legs, and therefore are the boy young. The boy dies. “Suddenly the boy felt very calm. His eyes saw his hands lift the rifle. He felt nothing. He felt as if he were dead.” (p.29 l.18). The boy does not die, but has become a real man.

When he has shot his first kangaroo he does not feel very good, he cannot even remember pulling the trigger” …He was empty as if his heart and guts had been sucked out of the barrel of his gun” (p.2 l.29-30). He is disappointed ”he had thought that somehow this would make him a man- but it had made no difference at all.” To him killing the kangaroo has been pointless, it did not make him a man. “The boy was surprised to find himself with an empty gun in his hands” (p.3
l. 28-29), again he does not know exactly what has happened, every time he shoots a kangaroo, it is like he does not do it himself. But he still does not feel like a man - more kangaroos have died for no reason at all. Instead of becoming a man, something else happens to the boy, he changes but not in the way the man had hoped for, it is the beginning of the boys breakdown ”something inside the boy died” (p.3 l. 30).

The boy walks behind the man, even though the man has told him not to several times. He aims at the man’s head dead,” said the boy.”(p.5 l. 21). The boy in the story are being pushed too far, he is an extreme example of what can happened if you push young and sensitive people beyond their limits. The man was so bloodthirsty to make the boy a man that he forgot to consider how the boy felt about it, and the boy would not say anything because he would not disappoint the man, his role model.

Emil Geronne