Summary Of The Smoothest Way Is Full Of Stone By Orringer

In Orringer’s pivotal first publication “How to Breathe Underwater” she immerses each one of her characters in a swell of darkness and raw brutality of human sentiment, all while leading them to greater revelations about their personal identities. Orringer manages to seamlessly paint a portrait that encompasses the shadowy essence of the world her characters reside within: a world in which children are left to their own devices, then are quickly thrust into the cruel reality of life, and are ultimately left to defend themselves from others. This cruelness Orringer writes of is commonly depicted as a sociocultural construct, her stories pursue to cognize how the forces of society and culture have the ability to influence individuals’ thoughts, feelings, and behaviors. In Orringer’s “Note to Sixth Grade Self” and “The Smoothest Way is Full of Stones” depicting the ways in which harsh sociocultural constructs define adolescent’s revelations about their greater identities within the world is a prominent theme.
This brief story captures a compelling portrait of the evils defined within a long standing sociocultural system that still continues to surround female adolescents. “Note to Sixth Grade Self” is built upon a sort of self-castigating language that has long stood as a foundation of the sociocultural system that defines female adolescent cruelty. Orringer implies within her writings that due to sociocultural systems constructed by female adolescents, entire groups of people are discriminated against. Orringer also implies that it is within the nature of humans to be critical towards those who they deem unfit to integrate into