This short story is set in the not too distant future in where old age is frowned upon and Douglas Bent, Jr. is growing weary of his land, youth, and heritage fleeting before his eyes. Douglas lives in Nova Scotia in 2049 and has no remaining friends or family. Due to the sever lack of land resources and space, when you are born you are issued a birth certificate, that expires when you turn 50 years old, and you can be "euthanized" .
It is Douglas Bent, Jr's Birthday and during the story Douglas cannot remember his age, searching for it in the Bent Family chest he finds many of his childhood items and family heirlooms as well as his birth certificate. After seeing his birth certificate and thinking he is 50(although the numbers add up to 60), he tries to recall what this numbers significance is, he reads the bottom line and finds out it expires today, his birthday, and that he is, after all, getting a birthday present. I can relate to this part of the story because it seems like every few years I will be looking for something and come across an old yearbook or scrapbook or something, and looking through it recalling all the stuff and changes that happened that year, and remembering how different it was.
Douglas also thinks back often to when his family owned hundreds of acres of forest and land, with streams, animals and farms. His former land has now been paved over into highways, mined and industrialized with "Brick apartment hives", no one else in the valley has even seen a live cow, pig or goat before.
A few of the connections in this story are:
-Douglas vs Solar powered stove
The stove takes too long to heat up for Douglas and unlike the wood stove which he was forced to replace because of the impossibility of finding wood to burn, the electric stove does not heat up the house.
Man vs Technology.
-Maple tree vs Nature
All his life, Douglas has made his wintergreen tea from fresh maple sap. But when he ventures out to his last remaining maple tree he finds it dead. the tree could not survive in the modern civilization where all other wildlife has expired.
Nature vs Nature
-Douglas vs. Self
Douglas has a severe memory problem, and can no longer remember how old he is, where he has places items such as the key to his chest in the attic.
Man vs Self
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3 comments:
I don't think it will surprise you to learn that this is far too short to be a strong entry. You have completed a brief summary. If I was marking this first attempt, I would probably assign a three or four out of ten. What I need you to include is a personal connection: What did the story make you think about or feel, and a discussion of conflict: "man vs. man", or "man vs. self", or "man vs. society". Make sure to use examples from the text to support what you say about conflict. Please do this and re-post. I will respond to your work.
I posted that the first day instead of saving it, and I could not remember my password on Friday. But the works up there now.
Thanks Wes. This is a much stronger entry. I guess it will take us both a little while to figure out on-line journaling.
I can also relate to feeling of memories flooding back while looking through photo albums.
Don't you love that metaphor: "Brick apartment hives"! It really creates a clear picture in my mind of all those people crammed together, and yet all alone. Little honeycomb cells.
A good discussion of conflict, although I would suggest that the maple tree is in conflict with the society that has depleted the soil, not nature.
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