Be_Sure_Our_Sins_Will_Find_Us_Out

Be Sure Our Sins Will Find Us Out The short story, “How Could a Mother'” by Bruce Holland Rogers, is a very hard story to understand because it is presented in the form of all questions. Because of this, there are not specific answers. It is not until the last paragraph of the story that everything makes sense and we see the true reason for the story. My purpose today is to give a basic analogy of the story, to explain what literary elements are used in this story and then to explain why these elements helped make this story effective. Analyzing this story is hard because it is not really a story, but a compilation of questions. However, we can read between the lines to pick up the plot of the story. There are many different ideas that this story could portray. By the questions that were being asked by the other person, it is safe to say he/she is most likely a police officer. It is not until we read the final paragraph that we realize the police officer is in fact a woman. The police woman was asking the mother questions trying to discover what actually happened to the baby girl, Josie. It seems as if she assumes the boyfriend has abused the baby either sexually, physically or has shaken the child. It also seems as if the mom has also punished the child in some way. It seems as though both were drunk and in an altered state, too inebriated to know exactly what they had done or what harm had been done. The characters in this story are a mother, her daughter (Josie), and the boyfriend, who seems to be the one that hurt the little girl. I think that the setting of the story is taking place at the house where the incident took place or at the jail after the cops had found the child. The child has been reported as abducted, but the mother and boyfriend have taken the child to Cascadia State Park and dispensed of the body there. The main point of the story would be that the either the mother or the boyfriend, more than likely the boyfriend beat and possibly even raped the little girl. So, what can we do to prevent anything like this from happening to us in the future' This whole short story is basically a collection of questions asked in some kind of interview of the mother. The person interviewing the woman is trying to make her feel bad for leaving her daughter; and the woman is trying to defend herself and her boyfriend, even though she knows there is really no defense for what she has done wrong. Once the child was found, the mother tried to put the blame on the boyfriend, but the police officer seems to be hip to her game. She is asking just the right questions. We might even think that possibly she had been through something similar before with her comment, “…only a mother who has felt her own hand shake with a rage that is bigger than she is can ask'” (question 57). Next, I would like to give some examples of literary elements that are used in this story, the biggest of which is irony. However, there are many different types of irony. First of all there was verbal irony. The speaker is asking questions. But we use those questions to determine what the story is about. Although all there is are questions, we understand them as answers to what is going on in the story. Finally, I want to tell how these literary elements help me to understand the story. Normally, this might be a hard story to understand because of all the questions, but because the author used verbal irony, it makes the story more understanding. What he does is ask a specific question and then asks another question that answers the previous question. By doing this, he lets us know what is being done without actually telling us what is being done; we make those assumptions on our own. This is effective because our mind fills in the blanks. In conclusion, I have given an analysis of the story; I have told what literary elements the author uses to help us understand the story. I have also told how these elements help us as readers to understand the story. I began this paper with one conception of what this story was about, but after analyzing the story, I see that my analysis was incorrect. I began by thinking that the mother and the boyfriend made some bad decisions and that the little girl was alive just missing. Then after really analyzing the story, I saw a different view. I could see that the story was about one of those Susan Smith moments, where a mother takes the life of her child and then tries to blame it on someone else. In both cases and in all cases like this, I believe the Bible has the final word in it when it says, “Be sure, our sins will find us out!!!”