Stolpestad
STOLPESTAD
We all know the type. He is a dry stick often a maverick. Although he is very aware that he feels he will be completely unable to communicate it. He will go to the local pub and stay there for hours and hours after the end of the day’s work - not because he’s an alcoholic but just because he can’t stand his wife asking him all the time - How was your day? Did you see anything exciting? What’s wrong? Why aren’t you answering me? It is because the main character in Stolpestad (2008) by William Lychack has become discontent with the utter stagnation in his life.
Stolpestad is the main character in the short story. He is a police officer, born and raised in the town where he lives. His world revolves around the small town containing the coffee shops, the liquor stores, Laundromats, police, fire, gas stations (p. 1 l. 4-5) as the narrator tells us, this is his life. Note that assuming the narrator is Stolpestad himself, he actually defines himself by this place - those few things listed before is everything he sees himself in - he has no sense of own identity. However Stolpestad is filled with a longing, he describes the streets as sad, and as he drives by them he is hoping to glimpse someone or something - yourself as a boy perhaps (p. 1 l. 13) He is desperate for a change and wonders where his youth went. His whole life is like the sun never burning through the clouds, clouds never breaking into rain (p. 1 l. 2-3) nothing ever happens no good nor bad.
Stolpestad never expresses through the story how discontent and desperate he feels, he probably never even said a word to his wife about it. However as it is popularly said; his actions speak louder than his words. Besides the sphere of adjectives in the text put the by the author, Stolpestad shows his discontent and despair when he instead of returning home to his wife and children after a long, hard day’s work, finds comfort at the bottom of a pint and yet another pint at a local pub. Lychack,
We all know the type. He is a dry stick often a maverick. Although he is very aware that he feels he will be completely unable to communicate it. He will go to the local pub and stay there for hours and hours after the end of the day’s work - not because he’s an alcoholic but just because he can’t stand his wife asking him all the time - How was your day? Did you see anything exciting? What’s wrong? Why aren’t you answering me? It is because the main character in Stolpestad (2008) by William Lychack has become discontent with the utter stagnation in his life.
Stolpestad is the main character in the short story. He is a police officer, born and raised in the town where he lives. His world revolves around the small town containing the coffee shops, the liquor stores, Laundromats, police, fire, gas stations (p. 1 l. 4-5) as the narrator tells us, this is his life. Note that assuming the narrator is Stolpestad himself, he actually defines himself by this place - those few things listed before is everything he sees himself in - he has no sense of own identity. However Stolpestad is filled with a longing, he describes the streets as sad, and as he drives by them he is hoping to glimpse someone or something - yourself as a boy perhaps (p. 1 l. 13) He is desperate for a change and wonders where his youth went. His whole life is like the sun never burning through the clouds, clouds never breaking into rain (p. 1 l. 2-3) nothing ever happens no good nor bad.
Stolpestad never expresses through the story how discontent and desperate he feels, he probably never even said a word to his wife about it. However as it is popularly said; his actions speak louder than his words. Besides the sphere of adjectives in the text put the by the author, Stolpestad shows his discontent and despair when he instead of returning home to his wife and children after a long, hard day’s work, finds comfort at the bottom of a pint and yet another pint at a local pub. Lychack,