“You’ve left me in a real place.”
Out of the three stories by Belle Bogg’s I found “Election Day” the most interesting story. I found it interesting not so much because of the plot, but because of how it was written. The immense amount of description in the story creates a very vivid picture. When I read I love details, I would much rather be fully immersed in the stories setting. The level of description used is especially crucial to “Election Day” because of the point of view from which it is being told. The story comes from the view of an eighty-four year old woman named Cutie. Whenever older characters are in stories they tend to use a great amount of detail. I believe this is to highlight the appreciation for life that older people have (or at least some). Perhaps appreciation for life is not the best wording for it but more that older people hold greater value on memories. A lot can happen over the span of eight-four years, there is a lot to remember. One memory in particular that is brought up more than once is Cutie’s love of the feeling of stepping on frosted grass. It is something so small and insignificant, but it clearly is very important to her. Most people have memories or odd things such as this from their childhood that contain a certain feeling of nostalgia. To me the theme of this story is about nostalgia for the past. While Cutie does seem