Frank Conroy's Epilogue

Frank Conroy’s epilogue says a lot, not only about him, but about what he’s writing. Conroy starts the epilogue with him braking his car; as with most “coming-of-age” stories, they end with almost a halting effect, as if life has slowed down for the author and matured. However, given that this is Frank Conroy, he immediately follows this metaphor with him doing exactly what immature Frank would do: tempting fate and giving himself over to it. This passage also severely impacts the prologue, for me, anyways. The juxtaposition between the prologue and epilogue is somewhat explained through the book; the reader’s first impression of Conroy is that he is this brooding, over-dramatic author who has some simple problems in his life. This image of
Cummings’ piece [In Just-] did a wonderful job of capturing a very specific emotion and mindset: a child’s though process when experiencing a new spring day. My reasoning behind this is mostly through the poem’s formatting. When you structure a poem or an essay, the author generally tries to keep things very organized and linear; however, this poem seems to capture the exact opposite. An unclear, almost aimless train of thought that seems to develop itself as you read it; the spaces in between words can be thought of as those moments as a child where you filled silence with “uhm” as you visualized something. A specific example of this can be seen in the phrase “eddieandbill”. Now, clearly it’s meant to mean two specific people; however, in this poem, the two individuals exist as one entity. What I mean by that is that when you think of something, or a memory, you generally objectify that experience as a single thing. “My friends and I went to a bar”; when you remember that instance, you don’t think of each individual as their own person, necessarily, but you remember that experience as being in a group of people. As a child, that process of memory is further simplified, as captured by