Response to Green

The short story, Green, by Anne Enright, is about an organic farmer who now bears the fruit of her many years of devoted labour in organic produce. The story describes her emotions towards a woman named Gertie, a woman who criticized her organic vegetables when her business was poor, but orders the vegetables when her business is booming.

By comparing the narrators thoughts to Gertie’s actions, we see how Enright prioritizes on leading a pure, well deserved life earned by working hard, even if it means having bumps in the road at first, as opposed to one that is impure and taken for granted. Enright also underlines by comparing the weddings of both the narrator and Gertie that we shouldn’t do things just because we are supposed to and social norms comply us to. It’s the people that do things differently that stick out, not those that follow these norms. The author also shows us that we should never judge someone by what they do, because what you may be judging the person for might be something you need from that person.

I was very flabbergasted when the narrator answered Gertie’s call. Instead of letting Gertie know how she felt about Gertie’s ignorance to organic food, she agreed to take her order. She seemed like the person that would defend her hard work by telling her that she didn’t want to give her the produce. We see later that she is indeed aggravated that “Gertie doesn’t understand organic,” and commences cutting down trees. What aggravated me was that despite their hurtful comments towards her, the narrator still provided them with vegetables occasionally.

The narrator of this short story reminded me of the character Holden, from “The Catcher in the Rye”, by J.D. Salinger. In the story, the narrator described how she had to smile at Gertie and her coworkers when she sold them her produce, even though they’d criticize her food. She explains how she hated doing that because it’s not who she truly is. The same can be said about Holden. He