Death By Scrabble Essay

Another consequence of grudges, revenge and feuds are the feeling of aggression towards one another. In the short story, “Death By Scrabble” by Charlie Fish, a husband and wife are playing an intense game of scrabble on a hot summer day. The husband holds onto the grudge of loathing his wife and doing dull activities like playing scrabble on Sunday afternoons. During this game, the husband continues to contribute powerful and adverse words and comments about his wife. The text states “My cousin Harold swallowed a bee when he was nine, his throat swelled up and he dies. I hope that if they are bees, they fly into my wife’s throat… She plays SWEATIER, using all her letters. 24 points plus a 50 point bonus. If it wasn’t too hot to move, I would strangle her right now.” (Fish, 1) Here,
Fish uses the phrase “If it wasn’t too hot to move, I would strangle her right now.” to express how the husband having a grudge of loathing his wife and having strong aggression towards her. This displays how the act of the husband having a grudge of playing scrabble on Sunday afternoons and loathing his wife had caused aggression to occur and cause the husband to wish violent and hostile acts upon the wife. Along with aggression to occur from grudges in “Death By Scrabble, it also occurs in the short story, “Popular Mechanics” by Raymond Carver. On a gloomy day a couple had just recently separated and the man decided to pack his bags and leave. But then the couple had started to feud about who gets the baby. After arguing, the wife had went into the kitchen with the baby, while the husband had followed. The man tried to pry the baby out of the woman's hands, with each of them harshly pulling and grabbing at the crying baby. The text states, “In the near dark he worked on her fisted fingers with one hand and with the other hand he gripped the screaming baby up under an arm near the