Nina Godridge's Short Story Review

Hello internet or formally known as the Smith Short Stories 2015 Blog, 

It's Nina Godridge back with another update on short stories read this past weekend! Jamaica Kincaid's "Girl" captives the reader in an instant, with a style of writing never really seen before. It's a continuation of rules and manners the narrator has learned from an older figure, mostly likely assumed to be the mother of the narrator. It can be indicated the narrator is a girl, based on use of doubling certain lines like, " the slut you are so bent on becoming; " or " this is how you iron your father's khaki shirt.” This happens again in two other lines, a repetition due to the importance. Using the semicolon between each sentence creates the running of the list technique, which is what made me love it so much. It just felt like a endless stream of thoughts that conveyed a story about the narrator.

“ How To Talk To Your Mother” by Lorraine Moore was another great story! I was so immersed within the text that when I finished I couldn’t believe it took me only five minutes to read. What I really love is how it starts off in the year 1982 and travels backwards into the narrator’s life. Reading just what happened each year that lead her to where she is now. The tone of it was made through the monotone of her emotions, for which is very little. Ending in the year 1939, the ending lines place you in a time-travel machine, “ The year’s big song is ‘Three Little Fishes’ and someone, somewhere, is playing it.” Just showing the significance to her about each year, which is essentially what she writes about from that time.

Ernest Hemingway’s “ Hills Like White Elephants” is truly a masterpiece on it’s own. Hemingway has the great talent of writing very lucid dialogue that we’re actually sitting there listening to the couple talk about their love and trails of their relationship while sipping beers at the train station. The imagery for the piece paints a picture in your mind of the hill that looks as though they are elephants, “ The girl was looking off at the lines of the hills. They were white in the sun and the country was brown and dry.” Each of these short stories was a complete delight to read!