Vernissage essay

This short story is called “Vernissage.” And the author is Claire Anderson-Wheeler. This story is about a young lad named Alex. The readers follows the story from Alex’s point of view.
Since this story starts in the middle of an action, and we get nothing beforehand, means that there isn’t any introduction to where we are, such as country or city, or who we are dealing with, except for Alex and his mother.

In the text, it says that Alex hides under his parents’ bed, because he doesn’t want to do his homework.
From under the bed, Alex witnesses that his mother is trying to get his father’s attention, but it isn’t going too well, since all he cares about at that moment is the vernissage that they’re going to at the evening.
In the text, we also read about how his parents affects him growing up, in a bad way.
Reading the text, it seems like Alex is maybe, in the very early teens, over maybe even a bit younger than that. I would say between 9 and 14 years old, which is a bit of a gap, but it is not easy to know, since we’re never told how old Alex actually is. I have estimated his age to be right before the teens, because of the way he acts. It seems like he wants to be like a grown up person, but yet again, stay back as a kid, and instead of taking those important decisions he just wants to stand back, and stay with his safety and his norms.
It says in the text, “Maybe he was getting too old for banana sandwiches. He thought about saying that he didn't want to eat them anymore. But he liked them,” which indicates that he wants to grow up, but yet again, not really.
Later on Alex overhears a conversation between his parents, while he hides under their bed, and after that conversation, he decides that it is time to grow up!

Looking deeper in the text, it looks like that Alex parents’ used to have a very good relationship, but it’s getting worse and slowly falling apart. It could seem like that Alex’s father isn’t focusing as much on his family, as he might have done before, but now he is all over his career, instead of his family, even though Alex’s mother tries to get the fathers attention, but without the best of luck.

When she’s finally able to get his attention, she shows Alex’s father her new dress and says, “You've told me before how the colour suits me,” and to that he answers "Did I? I'm sure it does." That is just another sign that he actually used to care about what she used to wear and do, but now he can barely remember that he said it, because he is to busy doing and thinking about other things. That pretty much just is another sign that he do not care as he used to, which most likely also is one of the reason that their relationship is falling apart.
Afterwards Alex’s mother takes his father’s hand on her breast. She’s doing that trying to make his father see her as the woman he once fell in love with, might still love, and not just as the woman he just lives with and is around, but there isn’t any luck. Alex’s father yet ignores her, and completely cold. He barely reacts to anything she does or says. He do not show any enthusiasm about his wife or anything Alex does or shows him.
Since the father is that far out, and won’t give her any attention, and barely care about them anymore, she simply gives up. The father left the room, “He left the room, and his voice drifted up from the stair "What time is the babysitter?" She made no answer.” After that the mother left the room as well, and Alex pulled himself out from under the bed, takes his toothbrush and decides that it needs to be thrown out, because it was too childish. He began to brush his teeth, “He brushed them for a long time, steadily. Wish- wish; wish-wish.” Which is the end of the story. That’s a very open ending where pretty much anything can happen. The way Alex has grown up, might give him some difficulties in his future life, and there’s probably a divorce coming up.

This big relationship thing, is a very important part of the story. It seems like this story is pretty much build around it. That and Alex growing up, which fits quite well, since that’s a very common thing these days. There’s problems in almost every family, that affects the children growing up.

All in all, this story is very likely to actually happen, because it’s such a usual thing, and in a lot of situations, young kids have to act mature, because of the trouble, which might create a trauma for them, and it seems like something like that happened to Alex himself.