JGB's ENG 104

To honour. To mock. To fear. To hate. To be fascinated. To laugh out loud. This story starts out differently then most other short stories I’ve read. It starts with the above quote, which is very unusual. This story is told in first-person. As the reader, you are showed the thoughts of the unnamed male […]

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“The Night in Question” by Tobias Wolff is a third-person narrative about the death of Benny Bolling, the son of Janice and Mike Bolling, who died after being crushed by machinery while at work with his father. He deliberately disobeyed his father and went to the mechanical room that is deep below the surface of the bridge. […]

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What I fear, I avoid. What I fear, I pretend does not exist. What I fear is quietly killing me. Would there were a festival for my fears, a ritual burning of what is coward in me, what is lost in me. Let the light in before it is too late. (633) In Jeanette Winterson’s […]

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“The Night in Question” by Tobias Wolff at its core represents the difficulty of making choices. Whether they be simple decisions or complex ones that require a great deal of thought, some things are not easily decided. As a person who is painfully indecisive and emotionally charged all of the time, I can understand the difficulty.  […]

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For her brother she’d fought neighborhood punks, snotty teachers, and unappreciative coaches, loan sharks, landlords, bouncers. From the time she was a scabby-kneed girl she’d taken on her own father, and if push came to shove she’d take on the Father of All, that incomprehensible bully. She was ready. (642) The truth of the matter […]

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“I’m down in the mill, Frank. I’m stuck in the gears and here comes the train with Mother Teresa and five hundred sinners on board, whoo whoo, whoo whoo. Who, Frank, who? who’s it going to be?”  This story makes it very clear that Frank has two main receivers of love in his life: his […]

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He did not understand what it was to be helpless and alone. No one should be alone in this world. Everyone should have someone who kept faith, no matter what, all the way. (639) This passage shows the relationship between Frances and her brother, Frank, in Tobias Wolff’s “The Night in Question.” Frank was abused […]

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They were hoping for a whole houseful of kids, but the Lord decided to give them one instead, a very special one… Benny came out in high gear and never shifted down. This quote from Tobias Wolfe’s “The Night In Question” stands out to me the most because, despite the fact Frank didn’t sound similar to Benny, many […]

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This story expresses a question often presented to people of Christian faith: Would you risk your loved one for complete strangers? Pastors often preach that one should love others as their God did; allowing his own son to be killed so that others could be saved from sin. The main characters of this passage show […]

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And at this moment, when Mike has nowhere to hide and nothing left to tell himself, then he can hear, and he knows that he is not alone, and he knows what it is that he must do. It has been done before, even by Him who speaks, the Father of All, who gave His […]

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I’m not religious in the least, but my mom was raised strictly Baptist and ended up leaving the church completely in her twenties. My mom and I have had many conversations about God and religion; how some people utilize religion to find purpose and stability in their lives, a moral code, or to better serve a personal […]

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I myself have been in the shoes of Frank and I have experienced people like Frances, who are ready to fight till the end. It is in those moments that every single word that comes out of your mouth matters the most. Though what I feel Tobias Wolff has captured the best in  his short […]

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But her husband had never been thrown across a room, or kicked, or slammed headfirst into a door. No one had ever spoken to him as her father had spoken to Frank. He did not understand what it was to be helpless and alone. No one should be alone in this world. Everyone should have […]

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In the short stories by Belle Boggs, they are all set in a rural setting. Even though two of the stories, “Deer Season” and “Election Day,” do not explicitly say where they are set (county or state), the reader can picture the ruralness of the story. But in her stories “Good News for a Hard […]

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“Skinny, who was not skinny at all…” (Good News for a Hard Time, 14) (Homecoming, 3) This passage came form both “Homecoming” and “Good News for a Hard Time.” I found it interesting how Belle Boggs wrote “Homecoming” and “Good News for a Hard Time” as stories that ran parallel and at the same time […]

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Rather than talking about one of Belle Boggs’ short stories I would like to address how she connected “Good News for a Hard Time” and “Homecoming” so that they both have the same setting, the rural county of King William, Virginia. This county just so happens to be the county that Belle Boggs grew up […]

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Below are the beginning paragraphs from an essay by the author Aminatta Forna in the magazine World Literature Today. You can read the complete essay here. Human beings tell stories. This is a fact. Every society, however differently organized and structured, whether founded on the values of matriarchy or patriarchy, whether agricultural, sea-going, peaceful, or warmongering, tells […]

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“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 […]

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If this story were told using only one perspective, it would lose a lot of the emotion the author wrote in it. Using more than one perspective means we can see multiple views on the same event. We see how each of these characters goes about the day affected by the first day of hunting […]

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A parent’s absence in a child’s life can have a negative impact on the child’s ability to be a parent in their adult life. In the short story “Good News for a Hard Time” by Belle Boggs, the struggles of a woman without a mother are addressed by how she feels about her pregnancy. Ronnie, the […]

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The title of this story implies a certain amount of hope that is sharply contrasted by the narrator’s sense of dread towards her current pregnancy. When she says, “Part of her wished she could just stay pregnant,” (7) she does not mean it as a sweet sentiment but rather the hope that she will never […]

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Anyway, Mrs. Hayes probably thinks Jason wishes he were out hunting, ha, what a joke. Jason’s dad offered to take him…but then he never called back when he said he would. He was probably waiting for Jason to call him back, and Jason was busy…Jason doesn’t think he could shoot something as helpless as a deer anyway.” This […]

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Belle Boggs’ “Good News for a Hard Time” explores the ways in which the loss of a parent can impact a child, while also touching on differences in social classes and the additional struggle this can cause. Ronnie is understandably resentful of her mother’s leaving and her father’s simple acceptance of this, but shows a clear inability […]

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Belle Boggs’ “Deer Season” is written in the third person and consists of characters that fit into common stereotypes. Among the stereotypes explored in this story are the gender roles different characters assume.  Gender roles are seen in this story when most of the male students don’t attend school so that they can go hunting, while the […]

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On the first day of dear season the high school is deserted of all the boys. This is expected by the teachers, who will chat with the girls and show movies all day… (3) The irony of Belle Boggs’ “The Deer” being the focus on the story on the girls in the school, and the […]

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