Floating By Karen Brennan Summary

Langstrand 1
Russel Langstrand
Professor Sayle
English 101-157
9-27-11
The Grim Reaper Floats The story Floating by Karen Brennan is about a woman who can miraculously float. She floats around the house day after day seeming to never leave. Her husband, however, seems completely unimpressed by her ability and sees her as a burden. A burden that he must feed and take care of. It is not long into the story before she finds a baby and brings it into her house. While this is happening another story is being told about a woman who meets Satan, and has a conversation with him in her house. The author intended for all of these events to relate to each other, and also to have some sort of deeper symbolism. The woman who aimlessly floats through the halls of her house does not have a choice, she is trapped. Her and every one else in the story is dead and stuck in Purgatory waiting for their eternal fate to be decided. All of them experiencing death in a different way, the man bitter and mean, the woman and baby oblivious,
and the story of the woman who spoke to Satan is already destined for hell. According to the hell depicted in both Dante's Inferno and The Divine Comedy before
Langstrand 2 you enter hell there is a place called Purgatory. Purgatory is a place you go after death where you wait for the decision on whether or not you go to the eternal resting place of heaven, or if your soul is damned for the remainder of time in the pits of hell. Purgatory is where the majority of the story takes place. The woman does not know she is in Purgatory and that is why she is so amazed she can float. Floating is commonly a property given to the deceased, as in ghosts or spirits. The author also gave his character this ability as to hint to her death. She is trapped in her house, which is a symbol for Purgatory and that is why she feels she cannot leave. “I wish I could float at the supermarket or even outside beneath the stars, over the treetops which would be attractive from this angle. But I can only float through the rooms of my own house”(Brennan 303). In this passage the character is saying that outside is tantalizing and free, but she is bound only to the rooms and halls of the house. Because the house is a symbol for Purgatory, the outside world is an allusion to heaven, and that is why she wants nothing more than to leave the house and fly among the stars. Much like someone would like nothing more than to be allowed to be free of the bonds of Purgatory and frolic in the paradise of Heaven. Another hint in the text is when the author writes about the main character floating through the halls, and thinking back on her life as if it was a past event. She thinks about how
Langstrand 3 she arranged things on her coffee table trying to impress people, and have the silly objects reflect on who she is and realizes how foolish it was. A lot of people believe that once you pass on that you are enlightened and all earthly possessions and desires are realized foolish. This is what the author is referring to, because she is now dead she has been enlightened thus removing all of her earthly desires. The author also compared the main character to Chagall's bridal couple, which are newly wed ghosts floating across the canvas painted by the artist Mark Chagall. This could be yet another allusion to her being dead. “I float like Chagall's bridal couple slantwise, past the huge oak mirror my grandmother bequeathed me where...”(Brennan 303). Besides the bridal couple reference the author also mentions the main character's deceased grandmother bringing the thought of death into the reader's mind once again. All of these blatant messages of death shows that the author intended for the characters to be dead. The main character is not the only one who is dead in this story; there is also the husband and the baby. As we know, the husband of the main character of the story seems to always be aggravated and cranky, there is valid reasoning behind this. The wife and husband died at the same time, the husband knows that they are dead while the wife is oblivious. This is why the
Langstrand 4 husband is so utterly unimpressed by his wife's ability to float. They can both do it, he is just trying to protect her from the truth of their death. By not floating, the husband is letting his wife believe that they are still in the mortal world, that is why she can float and he is unimpressed. This would also explain why he seams so irritated all the time. Imagine if you knew you were dead, while you were trapped in Purgatory and you needed to pretend you weren't for the sake of the person you loved most in the world. This is an obvious reason as to why one would be mad. The baby in the story is also dead, The first layer of hell is Limbo and it is where all the unbaptized baby's go. The baby in the story died before it had a chance to be baptized, that is why they found it in Purgatory because it is also deceased. The reason it went to Purgatory is because the babies fate has not yet been decided. The layer of hell closest to Purgatory is Limbo, Limbo is where all the unbaptized babies go and that is where this baby went, the back room where the baby is kept is Limbo. The punishment in Limbo is for all of the unbaptized babies to float through the river of Acheron for eternity, to feel sorrow and hopelessness forever. In the story the baby is put into a drawer lined with blue velvet, the blue symbolizes water, and the drawer stops the baby from wandering around as in
Langstrand 5 it traps the baby.
Another part of the story mentions that the back room is where all the old photos are kept, all of the photos are souls trapped in a photographic tomb. The story also talks about how someone cracked the window with a pellet gun, so the window needed to be covered with a sheet. The window was a tantalizing view of heaven until it was covered leaving the room completely void of hope. The last story was of a woman who spoke with Satan and told him her life story this could also be interpreted in many ways. This last scenario of the story when the woman speaks to Satan in person is pretty straight forward. Whenever you hear of anyone speaking to the dark lord, you generally assume they are going to hell. The woman Lucifer spoke to was the main character of the story, but this event occurred in the past as foreshadowing to the point in time when she dies implying that the woman waiting in Purgatory is destined for
Hell. All of this evidence points to the author writing a new and twisted version of The Devine Comedy. This twisted text makes you think that hell is everywhere and even if it isn't apparent you could be in Purgatory this instant waiting for your eternal damnation.