Short Story

Short Story Analysis
The story I chose to do my analysis of is called the Soother by Elyse Friedman. This story starts off with what you think is a mother taking care of a newborn. She feeds him, burps him, soothes him and lays him down with a pacifier. It than turns out that he is a full grown man with a hired professional acting out a fantasy of his, he refers to himself as “Baby Lucas”. After he leaves the women’s house, he has a lot to deal with. His oldest is getting married and he has a problem with the reception hall they booked, he’s fighting with the manager in order to get back over $30,000 and it doesn’t seem to be working. His youngest is pregnant and alone and isn’t feeling that well, so he has to go to her house. His boss is calling him to return to the office and his brother is hassling him for money for another one of his “crazy inventions”. Lucas is constantly smoking throughout all of these events and keeps having major health implications. He feels his chest tightening from all the stress and is having trouble breathing. He goes to his daughter’s house to install an air conditioner for her and cannot handle the weight and drops it out the window. His health is deteriorating because of the stress and no one seems to care. At the end of the day, he comes home to his wife who asks him to do chores, not caring at all about his day or what he’s had to go through. And to top it all off she asks him to sleep on the couch. As he lies down to sleep, he remembers he has the pacifier still from the morning and sucks it till he falls asleep. The story is basically all about a day in the life of Lucas.
I like stories that I can relate to, things like this happen all the time. The way that Lucas’s day is full of many strenuous and annoying tasks, is something that happens to me all the time. It always seems that one thing cannot just go wrong; everything has to go wrong all at once. I also love the fact that the author made the main character resort back... [continues]

Read full essay