Mark Slouka
Crossing
When we hear the title "Crossing" it will give us a feeling of someone who is still crossing something. This is due to the ing-form because this form will always give us a feeling of an uncompleted or unfinished action.
The short story "Crossing" is by Mark Slouka who is an American novelist and critic. A relationship between a father and a son is the starting point of the story but it has many other angles too.
We live in a post-modern society which means we break a lot of traditional norms and we are beyond the scope of fixed boundaries.
Many signs indicate that the main character of this story is a modern man too.
The modern man is a father of a little boy and is divorced with the child's mum. It seems very clear that he is the reason to their divorce which can be seen in this quotation: “when he looked at her she shook her head and looked away and at that moment he thought, maybe—maybe he could make this right.” ( P. 2, ll.19-20). The man is very depressed which is probably because of the divorce. He wants to make it up and he cares a lot about his child which is mentioned in the two following quotations below: “…when the boy came running into the living room he threw him over his shoulder, careful not to hit his head on the corner of the TV…”
(P. 2, ll.16-17)
”It would take a little while, but he’d be able to see him the whole time.” (P. 3, ll.44-45)
Both of the quotations show us that he is a caring father and this can also be the reason to, why he wants to make it up with his ex-wife.
The father wants to pass his childhood memories on to his child and one of them is jaunts to the river with his own father and these jaunts mean a lot to him and it's why he wants to pass the memories on. When they arrive to the place with the river and the barn he realise that the river is bigger than he has expected. He considers to cancel the jaunt but he says that he has nowhere else to go. This