I didn't really understand this story at all. It was too short for me to even give it a chance to try to understand it. It ended before i knew it. I'm used to a short story having a climax of some sort and this story didn't really have one. It spoke about him and his girlfriend and how he cheated on her. He somehow begged her to still go on vacation with him. The cheating part is a big issue but it didn't really talk about how they overcame it. Then Diaz began talking about his trip he made and how he helped provide dental assistant. It was just jumping from topic to topic. I couldn't keep up.
I couldn't understand his concept of fitting in at "home". He mentioned it a couple times but i didn't get the hint of why he felt that way.
Towards the end of the story he spoke about everything that went wrong on his trip in in his life with his girlfriend but that he didn't completely crumble. I get the fact that he's obviously a strong person but throughout the whole story he didn't really talk about himself and what he did talk about, contradicted the other. First, he's a horrible boyfriend who hid the fact that he cheated on his girlfriend, then he's out in some other country helping out people with dental problems and assisting help as much as he can.
Personally, i didn't enjoy reading this story. I didn't see much point in what he was telling. It wasn't that interesting and its not something i'll always remember and be able to retell later on.
I agree with you with the part that it didn't have much of a climax. The story went on and on but it never had a great solution to any of Diaz's problems. Also, cheating on his girlfriend only made his life more miserable. He could've had one less problem if he hadn't cheated. Therefore, I have no sympathy for that particular problem of his. All in all, this story was just okay nothing eye-catching as you stated.
ReplyDeletethe thing seemed to me like a diary entry... and you seem to have looked it the same way.
ReplyDeleteKat,
ReplyDeleteIt is good that you noticed that he mentions the not fitting in at "home" a few times. Repetition is almost always a sign of something important and that is definitely the case here. Sometime very short stories are a bit difficult at first, because it does seem like not too much happens or perhaps in this case that a lot of things are not related or relevant. Instead of going through the story for clues- it helps to go into it. Poems work like that too much of the time. Think about the fact that he is looking back at this vacation - what is the central idea here? Is it about his relationship or about something else - an experience or something he learned and the relationship merely played a part in helping him "see" something? How might all these other things relate back to that in some way?
I can definitely see your point of view. This story is a lot shorter than our usual readings. He did not go into much detail regarding his personal issues which did bring some confusion to his story. How I interpreted the whole concept of fitting "home" is that Diaz was not able to feel like he belonged to his birthplace, the Dominican Republic, because of the fact that he could not speak much Spanish and was unfamiliar with his surroundings. Therefore, he could not feel any kind of connection to the Dominican Republic.
ReplyDelete