Preview

Crossing: Fiction and Story

Good Essays
Open Document
Open Document
892 Words
Grammar
Grammar
Plagiarism
Plagiarism
Writing
Writing
Score
Score
Crossing: Fiction and Story
A
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

You May Also Find These Documents Helpful

  • Good Essays

    As soon as the Americas were discovered, tens of thousands of people wanted to migrate across the sea. The fastest the voyage could be made was approximately one or two months. Communication between the colonies and England was extremely difficult. The regulation of religion was basically impossible. Without the government to intervene, colonists were free to grow whatever they wished and do what they wished with their money. Also, it is exceedingly difficult to govern a colony from thousands of miles away, so the colonies needed to develop their own system of governing. Britain at this pointed adopted a policy of salutary neglect. Salutary neglect allowed the North American society to develop and change into something completely different from what it originally was in England.…

    • 590 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    Carter describes how hurtful letting go is by supplying the reader with real life events. unharmed if so. They both had a mental battle between themselves to keep their happiest possession. Although Carter uses no adjectives to describe the man, he still wants his most blissful memories. The woman, who shows to have a great deal of emotion, also has a mental war. They are both believing in the utopia of keeping what’s theirs that they show no intention of giving up for the good of their own child. In the end, they had both lost with nothing to keep.…

    • 462 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    Miles Pequeno Check Mate

    • 491 Words
    • 2 Pages

    There is as many father and son stories as the day in long. All of them with the same feelings and emotion as Miles Pequeno tell of “check. Mate? Unfortunately no all have the same happy ending as this one with the son winning the approval of his father. While the father shows his excitement with…

    • 491 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    She also encourages him to embark for his journey. She incorporates her explanations into strong and meaningful sentences to show how important this journey is for him. "judicious traveler to a river, that increase its stream the further it flows from its source: or to certain springs , which running through rich veins of minerals, improve their qualities as they pass along"(line 17). This quote demonstrates that she uses the river, that keeps flowing and doesn't stop; as the river keeps flowing it gains new minerals and roots. Therefore he gains more knowledge and experience as he continue his journey. Also she wants to notify him to don't stop in one place, keep moving forward. In addition to that she desire that he will become more diligent and…

    • 712 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    crossing to always slow down and pay attention to your surroundings. If you come to a…

    • 543 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    Sometimes we heard her call him “Dad” but when she was not happy with his behavior she called him by his first name. After the sequence where he gets angry at his wife and knocks her over while she is carrying 12 full glass bottles of milk, he behaved a little better but always his kids are on the side of the mother. He could not imagine himself living in that situation. On the other hand, the mother was acting good and trying to make balance for everything. In the sequence when her son brought her flowers from the neighbor’s garden, though it made her irritated to have to cancel her trip, she kept smiling and remained calm. She was not happy with that situation but she wanted to make a change for her children.…

    • 490 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    The dad had no choice and was compelled to become a fisherman. In his young years, the father’s fantasy of going to university was thwarted, likewise because as being the only son in his own family, his parents’ wanted to sustain the heritage of fishing. The narrator’s mother is a housekeeper and her obligations are to either repair clothes ripped on the boat or make food for the boat. Every day when the narrator’s dad returns home, his wife’s would greet him saying “Well, how did things go in the boat today? “Well how did things go in the boat today?” (MacLeod, 262) The word boat embodies prison to the father. The father feels like he is on a life sentence where there is no way out and he is subjected to one job, fishing. He never wanted to lead the life of a fisherman but since he has no other job and is responsible towards his family the father was forced to work. The narrator’s father is confined by his line because he never had the opportunity to exceed and get a better education. Overall, the father never resent about his job as he knows he has a family and it is his job to keep them fulfilled and…

    • 1030 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    “A terrible thought crossed my mind: What if he had wanted to be rid of his father? He had felt his father growing weaker and, believing that the end was near, had thought by this separation to free himself of a burden that could diminish his own chance for survival.” (91)…

    • 868 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Satisfactory Essays

    The short story “Reunion” describes the last meeting between a son and his father. It incorporates humor, pathos, and grotesque in a blend that leaves readers unsure of the character of the father, and whether or not the boy is better off with or without him.…

    • 495 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Satisfactory Essays
  • Better Essays

    The Story of the Crossing

    • 1184 Words
    • 5 Pages

    Amongst today’s society there seems to be plenty of judgment. Wherever you go it is quite easy to find someone whom will ask or tell you ‘why are you wearing that shirt’, or ‘why do you speak with an accent.’ People do not accept others whom do not fit the stereotypical American. In doing so this creates many cultural differences and problems between ethnicities. Some of these problems most definitely include discrimination which can lead to high self consciousness. Much of this judgment is present amongst both articles, The Crossing, and The Story of My Body. Within The Story of My Body, Ortiz Cofer writes about her experiences being a Puerto Rican immigrant living in the U.S., while in The Crossing, Ruben Martinez writes about being the son of two immigrants and searching for an undocumented alien, UDA, in order to question and gain information, for he is a journalist.…

    • 1184 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Better Essays
  • Good Essays

    Paper

    • 528 Words
    • 3 Pages

    “Any man can be a father, but it takes a special person to be a dad.” There are some people who do not have the opportunity to have a father in their life. Someone they can call dad. Like the men in the work’s “Daddy” Sylvia Plath and “My Papa’s Waltz” by Theodore Roethke. A similarity of the works is that that the fathers were admired by their children. In contrast, In “Daddy” the fathers was abusive and in “My Papa’s Waltz” the father wasn’t abusive towards the son.…

    • 528 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    All around us things are pressuring us into doing something that we know are wrong. We are getting the wrong idea on what may be perceived as what is ‘socially acceptable’ in our generation. TV, commercials, movies, books, magazines, and even celebrities are all displaying things that are just completely morally wrong. Clothes are getting skimpier by the minute, and parents are allowing their children to walk around in barely anything nowadays. It is our responsibility to choose the longer dress in the closet, rather than the shorter…

    • 547 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    As time progresses the trend to defy the wants and desires of the parents of the past continues to be one of the main focusses of those who grow up. This is also the case in modern times as parents look upon the new trends that current generation have taken in and explored with the same look their parents gave them when they went out into the world exploring their new way of living. But while this new system of still trying to be carefree and rebellious still is bound by the thoughts of conformity. Although in the modern times things that are allowed now that would have been seen as completely absurd back in the day still are not apart of the normal life for most people. With laws still being updated and debated over current nonconformity topics there is still a lot of problems to be addressed. Those in the modern society still seek their comfort in conformity as some if not most people still hold a sense of fear of standing out too much to the point that they will be ridiculed by others. This is an aspect of society that will more then likely never go away as…

    • 802 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    The human condition is defined by passage. Ceaseless and all-embracing, it is at the heart of Walt Whitman’s celebrated poem “Crossing Brooklyn Ferry.” As Whitman’s speaker observes the ferry cross from Manhattan to Brooklyn, he reflects upon the crowds of men and women making the familiar passage and, more expansively, all people making similar passages – past, present, and future. He knows well what they experience and feel, for the same experiences and feelings make up his own life. In this shared journey, he finds a certain kinship and harmony. Ultimately, Whitman asserts that, though we move through life as individuals, our common experiences and our very nature unite us across space and time – that, like the scene before the speaker, we exist simultaneously both and in and out of time and so achieve unity with all.…

    • 1211 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    A family supper

    • 766 Words
    • 4 Pages

    The narrator nourishes a deep respect for his father. He describes his father as a “formidable-looking man”(Line 7), which suggests he is a bit afraid a him. This is further…

    • 766 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Good Essays