Crossing Mark Soulka Summary

A father is mostly looked at as a role model for a son. Kids idolize their parents, and that can put a lot of pressure on a mother, or father. When you always try to do your best and be the best for your child, you can easily feel that you aren’t doing enough. That will only hurt yourself in the end, when you have to stand up to all the guilt build inside. Mark Soulka’s story ‘’Crossing’’ from 2009 is about a father and son going on a camping trip, but ending up having to face far worse challenges than what was expected. Already in the first few lines, we get to know that this story is about a man. It’s written in 3rd person view and has a limited narrator. This means we only get to know how our main character feels and thinks. The other
It’s mostly in the woods, where both the river and the camping site is. The setting plays a big part in the suspense we get through the story. It all starts home, in a calm and normal environment. When we get to the woods we hear ‘’The river was bigger than he remembered it, stronger; it Moved like a swiftly flowing field’’(P.1-2 L.34-35) This is one of the first hints that something bad is going to happen. When they get to the barn they are supposed to sleep in, it’s described with the word skeleton. The setting is generally described with words we could associate with death. This is properly a relation to the end of the story. It has an open ending and leaves us at the point where we don’t know if the two characters’ lives or falls maybe to their death. When we already have the influence of the negative words, we could easily assume that the story isn’t supposed the end well. It is up to the induvial reader rather to think something bad happens, or that everything ends up being fine. One thing almost everybody can agree on is that the river plays a big part, and is supposed to be looked at as an obstacle for the father. Even though a river doesn’t have any human feelings, we hear ‘’The river. It wanted to be whole, unbroken. It wanted him gone’’ (P.5 L.143) This isn’t a normal thing for an object, but the way Mark Soulka uses symbolism in his story it all makes sense. The river isn’t just a physical thing, it’s also a symbol of the father and son’s relationship. The father isn’t just crossing a river, he is trying to fix a relationship, for every step he takes he is one step closer to the relationship he wants with his