Magaret Atwood hooked me with her first sentence "I know what the angel of suicide looks like." Though her story was incredibly short and did not include dialogue, there was a palpable interaction between the narrator and the described "angel of suicide." Though the narrator is directing her description of the interaction between a general "to you" I believe the narrator herself is being targeted by these thought of suicide and is personifying the desire in the form of this "angel of suicide".
However, that theory is directly contradicted in the narrator's last line "You wouldn't believe a thing she said if it weren't for the wings." Which suggests that there may be a literal figure, an angel, in front of the narrator. I found this to be a powerful ending, which led to further questions.
With the unexpected loss of his parent a boy develops a ghostly relationship to objects. This short story ‘Loser’ by Aimee Bender explores the beauty of disconnect through the delicacy of the writing and innocent story. In his search for the pure connection of unconditional love, this boy struggles to relate to people. Adopted into the community he relates inanimate objects misplaced from their original home. Expanding on the visual language of Bender’s writing, this toy theatre piece uses shadows and blurred imagery to explore the story of a boy displaced. I really enjoyed this story like in the first paragraph I thought it was really crazy how he could sniff out misplaced items, but then like Jenny turned it around on him like if he planned on impressing her mother but she wouldn’t hear him out. I just really feel bad for the boy because for the people that question him about his weird talent, it makes him feel like more of an outcast.
I loved how ominous it was at the beginning, I could see the orphaned boy with such characteristic. There was almost a spiritual connection to when trying to locate the lost boy, very magical. I'm not sure what the author means in the transition between Jenny's house and to Mrs. Allen's house, when she brings out the "Green Star" and the orphaned boy wants to lick it. Perhaps the Green Star could have symbolic meaning to wealth, power, and so on.
Once the protagonist goes off in search of Mrs. Allen's son he mentions he doesn't quite feel anything, such as the officer but instead feels the air and tug with objects around him. Which lead me to believe that either in the fiction story magic is happening or something spiritual. Which I found very clever also!
Towards the final paragraphs the nameless orphan crosses a sense of loneliness once again and can hear someone calling to him "Come find me". It makes me wonder if he is the dead one after all. The ending was powerful and made my heart continue racing, if he listened close enough he could hear the waves. I feel he's trying not to forget where he came from, who he is. Almost if he isn't real at all.
Yesenia Betancourt An Angel An Angel was a really interesting story to read. The first sentences really caught my attention, “I know what the angel of suicide looks like. I have seen her several times.” This story made me think that Atwood has had some personal experiences with the angel of suicide. It made me think that Atwood has struggled with suicide so much that she gave suicide a personification in the form of an angel. Atwood gives personification to the dark events that occur through one’s life by stating that there are other types of angels, like “the angel of lung cancer, the angel of seizures”, but more so she concentrates on the angel of suicide. Atwood’s description of the angel was something that I liked about the story. I could picture the angel, antimatter and smooth face, floating outside a window. I very much enjoy good imagery and I thought Atwood’s imagery was pretty good.
I found the piece to be strategically relatable as the author purposefully did not mention – or probably did not choose to make – a name for the main character. By keeping many facets of his personality subtle in the text, the author allows the audience to interject their own thoughts and feelings onto the character of the young man. However, she does not keep all of it subtle: we find that the young man likes to play sports and helped people, whether they were skeptical or not, in finding their lost things. The biggest insight into his character comes at the final sentences of the story where he is laying on his bed. We can see the character try and focus in on what he truly wants to find, and as the author writes, “he could hear the waves hitting.” He could hear is parents in the sea. It is interesting to note that this is the first time that he could find a person by just focusing in on them (the instance with the lost boy was due to him tracking down his shirt and not the boy himself). This could both mean his desire to find his parents caused his power to answer his request, or that since his parents are likely not among the living, that their bodies have become “objects” themselves and thus fall under the jurisdiction of his powers.
Regardless of the implications, I found that it was a wise choice in the author using their word count to flesh out the setting rather than the personality of the main character themselves. That job, as she likely intended, would fall on the audience and whatever conclusions we drew from what was given and our own experiences.
Personally this was a wonderful yet dark story to read for me. I like how the author compares her to the other angels seeing that she is just no ordinary angel and she makes it a point to explain that. One thing I was interested in finding out is how the author had seen the angel of suicide several times. Is the author suicidal? Or can she see things that no one else can see? I also like how from the third to the last paragraph the author gives an explanation of this angel's face, which was no face to speak of and the face of a "gray egg"; it gave me a small chill. It's interesting how the author makes it a point to ask that since she is a fallen angel that if she actually fell or jumped? Considering that she is the angel of suicide. Overall it was a story that hooked me from the beginning to end because of the author's technique to make this angel sound mysterious and dark.
Aimee Bender’s Loser is filled with symbolism. The story surrounds an orphaned boy who is gifted in finding lost things yet towards the end the reader can conclude that he is the one who feels lost when he says “Where did you go? Come find me. I’m over here. Come find me.” I also found the fact that he could only find things not people very interesting, I felt that it was a psychological hindrance that he brought on himself. Maybe the fact that he lost the two most important people in his life forever made him feel incapable of finding any other person. I could also get the feeling that he saw himself in the boy, Leonard, because he mentions the desire of calling him son and I think that it was not really his desire to father a child but instead his desire to have a father to once again be someone’s son.
Loser Aimee Bender This boy’s parents drown at sea and even though Aimee Bender doesn’t state if they were found or not she just says that they tried to save one another from drowning. I think maybe the story is a big metaphor for the sea, once you lose something at sea you’ll never find, it gets swallowed by the waves. This boy finds stuff for people because he can’t find what he lost, his parents. He’s never had a human connection, therefore, it was hard for him to find the lost boy. I enjoyed how the author never gives a name to the young man, maybe because he’s also trying to find not only objects but himself. Since he’s never had any guidance or direction. This story can be interpreted many ways and I think that’s what Aimee Bender wanted the readers to do.
Character development was key to this short story. Many things point to the loneliness of the protagonist. The first sentence "Once there was an orphan who had a knack for finding lost things" creates distance between the reader and the protagonist.The young man can only find lost things, not lost people, as he needed to focus on the blue shirt, this could be because he can’t relate to people since he didn't grow up with the love and affection of parents. The author never gave the protagonist a real name and instead is known as "the young man". Throughout the story he is nameless orphan who belongs to no one because he doesn't feel a tug. No one longed for him. It creates a melancholy tone for the story. Then at the end he can hear the “waves hitting”, a flashback to when his parents drowned, in a way wanting to go back in time before he was alone. Overall this character is a lonely man longing for closure and acceptance by the community which is the closest he has to a real family.
Every message has an angel, I love that. As much as we long for nothing but good messages Atwood makes it clear that not all messages are what we want to hear. “The angel of blindness, the angel of lung cancer, the angel of seizures, the destroying angel.” I really enjoyed how she described the angel of suicide & how she questioned whether she became the angel of suicide on purpose or by accident. Though I did enjoy how she didn’t give this particular angel features of beauty I maybe would’ve enjoyed a little more description appearance wise. I do also really enjoy that she brought to light that most of us are led to believe from a young age that angels are good and do no harm like the devil that we are quick to believe their message and not question it.
For me, this story intrigued me so much. For the author, this angel represented and symbolized something so extraordinary. She says that all angels are messengers, which is something that people say. She also explains how there are several angels for several different things and who manifest when they are to deliver a message. But I note that she makes the angel of suicide like something unique, someone to over powers others. To me, the author (or maybe someone she knew) was on the verge of committing suicide and saw this being appear in front of her. Very good short-short story that leaves you thinking.
Damaris Cantu I have always been attracted to dark stories that pack a punch of wittiness, An Angel is no exception. The author’s idea that every single message we receive in our lives, whether it be good or bad, each has its own an angel is both comforting and daunting at the same time. When I think of the word angel I think of sweetness and compassion, but the chilling picture that the author describes as the angel of suicide contradicts all my childhood perceptions of angels. In my belief, the angel of suicide is a sign of disillusionment. Suicide has always attributed to depression or cowardice, but to give suicide an angel of its own is essentially giving us a coping mechanism. If someone I knew committed suicide, my initial thought would not be of an angel, but after reading this short story I could see how the topic becomes almost like a fantasy. The angel of suicide is a beautiful, rebellious phenomenon that turns a subject as tense and as ominous as suicide into a gateway to a universe where everything has reason and every reason has an angel. This could be seen as a good or a bad thing, but it all depends on how willingly the reader is to accept the author’s work of fiction.
I really enjoyed this story, it was interesting since the beginning and made me want to read the rest. I liked how Bender never put names into the story and I agree with Nydia about how maybe it's because the protagonist is trying to find himself just like he finds those random objects. It's quite a sad story because at the end the protagonist says "come find me" after he helps find a woman's son and I think he wants that feeling, that someone is so desperate to have him back (his parents who drowned at sea). As for the title of the story, I didn't really like it. I understood that the protagonist was lonely and misunderstood but I never got the sense he was a "loser", maybe just a loner or lonely, etc. I think many people can relate to this story in a way, especially those who feel misunderstood or who are searching for themselves.
The story “Loser” was very fascinating to read. I quite enjoyed the imagery that it had. I could visualize everything. I couldn’t help but feel sorry for the boy. He was quite young when he lost his parents. The fact though even after that incident he got the “finding powers” he still felt empty. You would think that; that would help him cope with the death of his parents. The story had to deal with a lot of smelling, and touching. With that he would find the lost stuff. I liked how the author used those senses. For some reason though, when the author wrote about him smelling, I couldn’t help but think about Pluto the dog. The reason why, was because the dog would sniff things to find the missing items, and when he would find it, he would point where it was. Overall the story was nice to read. The author did a good job, writing it. It did a good job with making me feel something towards the young man in the story.
I found the story “An Angel” very interesting and liked the way symbolism was used. I liked how captivating the beginning of the story was and how she immediately puts a face to suicide. She states that she “knows what the angel of suicide looks like” and what I think she means is that she has had an encounter or a possible contemplation about committing suicide. I found it interesting how she sections angels depending on their message meaning that every cause, whether good or bad, has an angel on its side. The angels, in a sense, can also represent the daily temptations some may encounter: one being suicide. She explains this when she mentions the rebellion the angel makes you believe it has to offer when you are near a bridge debating whether to go through with it and jump and experience relief. It is there, in the most saddest of ways, as encouragement.
One aspect of the story that I enjoyed immensely was its uncanny ability to be both humorous and poignant. Bender’s rich exploration of loss works so well because of the strong central character at the forefront of the story.
Due to the young man’s loneliness, he is able to develop a harmonious connection with inanimate objects, but fails to establish any meaningful human relationships. When he witnesses the sight of maternal love—the “Green Star” lady losing her son—it affects him strongly because that’s something that has eluded him since he was a child. The incident produced a flurry of emotions that took the young man back to the moment when he lost his parents. His quest to find things that others have lost serves as a way to cope with his own loss of paternal/maternal love.
One artistic choice that I found intriguing was the approach that Bender took with the dialogue. She decided against punctuating any of the dialogue that’s used in the story, a creative decision that blends well with the theme of missing objects.
I find this story very intense and feel as if I were watching a thriller movie. I feel like it was written in such way that we could feel the authors fear of the angel. The imagery it uses, gives me clear pictures of what all sort of angels might look like. “Not so the angel of suicide, who is dense, heavy with antimatter, a dark star.” Magaret, describes well that the angel of suicide she sees is not like most others, it is more dark and rusty looking. Although the imagery she uses is strong I feel like the simile that the story uses brings a different aspect to what I had pictured the angel to look like. “From the friction of the air, her face melted off like the skin of a meteor.” This description of the angel is a little weak. I feel like that one comparison, made the image I had in mind totally turn a different direction. I would have personally tried to compare the angel to something more dull, or dark.
This story really made me take an entirely different insight to what I believed angels to be. Margaret Atwood begins by introducing suicide with an angel. This dark introduction felt like an oxymoron. For someone like me who was raised to believe that angels and suicide are on two opposite sides of the spectrum of death and after life, I was immediately intrigued at how the “angel of suicide” could even be possible. I also really like the comparison of what most people associate with angels, “the ones in classical paintings, with curls and beautiful eyelashes.” It is interesting to try and imagine an angel who isn’t beautiful. She goes into great detail what this angel is, “a dark star.” Then she finally gets into the real theme here where she explains how every type of angel is a messenger, even “snow angels.” This was so interesting to me because I never imagined suicide to be part of some kind of predestination. Instead I always saw suicide as an interruption in someone’s destiny. But this story gave me a different insight into suicide. It’s something that seemed to be very real to the author perhaps with some kind of experience with this angel.
Loser From the start of this story, I was incredibly intrigued by Atwood’s character development. The orphan boy loses both his parents and he begins to develop these “powers” of being able to discover misplaced or lost possessions. The author leaves the orphan boy nameless throughout the story and this lead me to believe he is searching for something within himself. He looks for others lost items to find whatever he feels to be missing; yet he can’t make a complete connection with anything or anyone. As he reveals about the watch his uncle had given him, he felt is was just a gesture and he felt no emotion. At the end of story the author creates fantastic imagery with the boy still in search of something. “ Everything felt blank and quiet,…if he listened hard enough, he thought he could hear the waves hitting”, he decided to fall back into his moment of solitude, the moment he was at the beach before he parents died.
First and foremost, I really enjoyed the way Atwood completely and utterly destroyed the general perspective on angels. Millions think them to be pure, white souls that only serve the side of good and are supposed to bring happiness upon our lives. But this short-short reminded us of the other side of the spectrum, that there are more colors than just white in terms of angels, as well. If one had forgotten about this, reading this short-short would feel like a resounding wake-up slap.
The power of this story is quickly showcased in the first sentence. Just nine words into the story, and I’m already at the edge of my seat, my eyes wide open as I quickly continue reading. The imagery is so vivid, so crude and grim that I cringed when I imagined the angel of suicide. I wouldn’t want to meet that one in a dark alley.
Those that have gone through the experience of almost committing suicide would relate to this short-short easily. Perhaps it was not the exact vision that she described, but I would not be surprised if it was similar.
There was nothing to dislike of this story. It was short, sweet, powerful, and left a lasting impression in me. It’s just what a short-short needs to be.
I really enjoyed reading this essay, rather than reading "An Angel," by Margaret Atwood, because suicide is for very weak and dumb people. Anyways, the first sentences of "Loser" are similar to how I start my creative fiction stories.
Another thing I like in fictional stories, is for the main character to have a unique power or supernatural abilities, to me that makes a great story like Spider Man. My short fictional story that I am composing for this class, is a being that holds unnatural powers, and that is one reason why I like this essay. In a way I'm kind of similar to the character, because I have a knack of finding out things and putting the puzzle pieces together.
One other thing I liked from this story, is that it showed how you can use dialogue in a short story or essay. I liked every single word of this piece of work. I don't have nothing bad to say about this story, for who am I to critique, I aint no editor.
An Angel by Magaret Atwood made me think very deeply to the point where I began to experience a sort of trip while reading this. Sudden realizations of the truth were apparent when I decided to switch the smooth gray tone of the angel's face to that of a mirror. If you grab a mirrors and turn it sideways at an angel, a reflection is visible yet it was a shade of gray to it. When she mentioned that this angel could have possibly fallen into our atmosphere, I immediately thought she committed her own suicide. Hence the name, the angel of suicide. Everyone has this notion of what the common good hearted angel is perceived to look like. Yet very few fail to realize that there is much more than meets the eye. There's angels of all types and this angel of suicide is no different. It mentioned that she's heavy with antimatter, a dark star. Maybe this was the cause that led her to fall from space, or heaven. She could've possibly jumped off as well. I like how it mentions that her face is smooth like a gray egg. If I can take it back where I relate it to a mirror, and then proceed to the part where you only see her "beckoning to you from outside the window, fifty stories up, or the edge of the bridge". This led me to believe that this angel appears when you're at the brink of extinction. It also mentions that she's a rebellious waitress. How so? I believe her rebellious nature comes from past experience, this angel of suicide didn't have the intentions to become the label given to her. She maybe believes that no person is worthy of this entitlement and rebels against anyone that tries to carry on with the deadly notion. Her smooth face, although possibly dull like an egg could be a blank slate for those that witness her. They possibly see their own reflection when they see her and just how they describe her as a waitress, she probably offers the deal of the night, and brings them their order. The deal of the night could possibly be a talk to the person attempting suicide that their is a way out from this and this obviously isn't the way. The last sentence mentions that they wouldn't believe a thing she said if it weren't for the wings. This is possible true, why not? I wouldn't believe if someone told me they were an angel if they didn't have wings either. The wings solidify that she a person of her word, and is telling the truth about her pervious experiences with matters such as these.
An Angel
ReplyDeleteAndrea De Llano
Magaret Atwood hooked me with her first sentence "I know what the angel of suicide looks like." Though her story was incredibly short and did not include dialogue, there was a palpable interaction between the narrator and the described "angel of suicide." Though the narrator is directing her description of the interaction between a general "to you" I believe the narrator herself is being targeted by these thought of suicide and is personifying the desire in the form of this "angel of suicide".
However, that theory is directly contradicted in the narrator's last line "You wouldn't believe a thing she said if it weren't for the wings." Which suggests that there may be a literal figure, an angel, in front of the narrator. I found this to be a powerful ending, which led to further questions.
Loser
ReplyDeleteAimee Bender
With the unexpected loss of his parent a boy develops a ghostly relationship to objects. This short story ‘Loser’ by Aimee Bender explores the beauty of disconnect through the delicacy of the writing and innocent story. In his search for the pure connection of unconditional love, this boy struggles to relate to people. Adopted into the community he relates inanimate objects misplaced from their original home. Expanding on the visual language of Bender’s writing, this toy theatre piece uses shadows and blurred imagery to explore the story of a boy displaced. I really enjoyed this story like in the first paragraph I thought it was really crazy how he could sniff out misplaced items, but then like Jenny turned it around on him like if he planned on impressing her mother but she wouldn’t hear him out. I just really feel bad for the boy because for the people that question him about his weird talent, it makes him feel like more of an outcast.
Selena Garza
ReplyDeleteLoser by Aimee Bender
I loved how ominous it was at the beginning, I could see the orphaned boy with such characteristic. There was almost a spiritual connection to when trying to locate the lost boy, very magical. I'm not sure what the author means in the transition between Jenny's house and to Mrs. Allen's house, when she brings out the "Green Star" and the orphaned boy wants to lick it. Perhaps the Green Star could have symbolic meaning to wealth, power, and so on.
Once the protagonist goes off in search of Mrs. Allen's son he mentions he doesn't quite feel anything, such as the officer but instead feels the air and tug with objects around him. Which lead me to believe that either in the fiction story magic is happening or something spiritual. Which I found very clever also!
Towards the final paragraphs the nameless orphan crosses a sense of loneliness once again and can hear someone calling to him "Come find me". It makes me wonder if he is the dead one after all. The ending was powerful and made my heart continue racing, if he listened close enough he could hear the waves. I feel he's trying not to forget where he came from, who he is. Almost if he isn't real at all.
Yesenia Betancourt
ReplyDeleteAn Angel
An Angel was a really interesting story to read. The first sentences really caught my attention, “I know what the angel of suicide looks like. I have seen her several times.” This story made me think that Atwood has had some personal experiences with the angel of suicide. It made me think that Atwood has struggled with suicide so much that she gave suicide a personification in the form of an angel. Atwood gives personification to the dark events that occur through one’s life by stating that there are other types of angels, like “the angel of lung cancer, the angel of seizures”, but more so she concentrates on the angel of suicide. Atwood’s description of the angel was something that I liked about the story. I could picture the angel, antimatter and smooth face, floating outside a window. I very much enjoy good imagery and I thought Atwood’s imagery was pretty good.
Andres Sanchez 20229480
ReplyDeleteLoser by Aimee Bender
I found the piece to be strategically relatable as the author purposefully did not mention – or probably did not choose to make – a name for the main character. By keeping many facets of his personality subtle in the text, the author allows the audience to interject their own thoughts and feelings onto the character of the young man. However, she does not keep all of it subtle: we find that the young man likes to play sports and helped people, whether they were skeptical or not, in finding their lost things. The biggest insight into his character comes at the final sentences of the story where he is laying on his bed. We can see the character try and focus in on what he truly wants to find, and as the author writes, “he could hear the waves hitting.” He could hear is parents in the sea. It is interesting to note that this is the first time that he could find a person by just focusing in on them (the instance with the lost boy was due to him tracking down his shirt and not the boy himself). This could both mean his desire to find his parents caused his power to answer his request, or that since his parents are likely not among the living, that their bodies have become “objects” themselves and thus fall under the jurisdiction of his powers.
Regardless of the implications, I found that it was a wise choice in the author using their word count to flesh out the setting rather than the personality of the main character themselves. That job, as she likely intended, would fall on the audience and whatever conclusions we drew from what was given and our own experiences.
Adam Rivas
ReplyDeleteAn Angel by Magaret Atwood
Personally this was a wonderful yet dark story to read for me. I like how the author compares her to the other angels seeing that she is just no ordinary angel and she makes it a point to explain that. One thing I was interested in finding out is how the author had seen the angel of suicide several times. Is the author suicidal? Or can she see things that no one else can see? I also like how from the third to the last paragraph the author gives an explanation of this angel's face, which was no face to speak of and the face of a "gray egg"; it gave me a small chill. It's interesting how the author makes it a point to ask that since she is a fallen angel that if she actually fell or jumped? Considering that she is the angel of suicide. Overall it was a story that hooked me from the beginning to end because of the author's technique to make this angel sound mysterious and dark.
Gabriela Montfort
ReplyDeleteLoser by Aimee Bender
Aimee Bender’s Loser is filled with symbolism. The story surrounds an orphaned boy who is gifted in finding lost things yet towards the end the reader can conclude that he is the one who feels lost when he says “Where did you go? Come find me. I’m over here. Come find me.” I also found the fact that he could only find things not people very interesting, I felt that it was a psychological hindrance that he brought on himself. Maybe the fact that he lost the two most important people in his life forever made him feel incapable of finding any other person. I could also get the feeling that he saw himself in the boy, Leonard, because he mentions the desire of calling him son and I think that it was not really his desire to father a child but instead his desire to have a father to once again be someone’s son.
Loser
ReplyDeleteAimee Bender
This boy’s parents drown at sea and even though Aimee Bender doesn’t state if they were found or not she just says that they tried to save one another from drowning. I think maybe the story is a big metaphor for the sea, once you lose something at sea you’ll never find, it gets swallowed by the waves. This boy finds stuff for people because he can’t find what he lost, his parents. He’s never had a human connection, therefore, it was hard for him to find the lost boy. I enjoyed how the author never gives a name to the young man, maybe because he’s also trying to find not only objects but himself. Since he’s never had any guidance or direction. This story can be interpreted many ways and I think that’s what Aimee Bender wanted the readers to do.
This comment has been removed by the author.
ReplyDeleteAlexis Madrigal
ReplyDeleteLoser- Aimee Bender
Character development was key to this short story. Many things point to the loneliness of the protagonist. The first sentence "Once there was an orphan who had a knack for finding lost things" creates distance between the reader and the protagonist.The young man can only find lost things, not lost people, as he needed to focus on the blue shirt, this could be because he can’t relate to people since he didn't grow up with the love and affection of parents. The author never gave the protagonist a real name and instead is known as "the young man". Throughout the story he is nameless orphan who belongs to no one because he doesn't feel a tug. No one longed for him. It creates a melancholy tone for the story. Then at the end he can hear the “waves hitting”, a flashback to when his parents drowned, in a way wanting to go back in time before he was alone. Overall this character is a lonely man longing for closure and acceptance by the community which is the closest he has to a real family.
An Angel – Magaret Atwood
ReplyDeleteEvery message has an angel, I love that. As much as we long for nothing but good messages Atwood makes it clear that not all messages are what we want to hear. “The angel of blindness, the angel of lung cancer, the angel of seizures, the destroying angel.” I really enjoyed how she described the angel of suicide & how she questioned whether she became the angel of suicide on purpose or by accident. Though I did enjoy how she didn’t give this particular angel features of beauty I maybe would’ve enjoyed a little more description appearance wise. I do also really enjoy that she brought to light that most of us are led to believe from a young age that angels are good and do no harm like the devil that we are quick to believe their message and not question it.
An Angel
ReplyDeleteFor me, this story intrigued me so much. For the author, this angel represented and symbolized something so extraordinary. She says that all angels are messengers, which is something that people say. She also explains how there are several angels for several different things and who manifest when they are to deliver a message. But I note that she makes the angel of suicide like something unique, someone to over powers others. To me, the author (or maybe someone she knew) was on the verge of committing suicide and saw this being appear in front of her. Very good short-short story that leaves you thinking.
Damaris Cantu
ReplyDeleteI have always been attracted to dark stories that pack a punch of wittiness, An Angel is no exception. The author’s idea that every single message we receive in our lives, whether it be good or bad, each has its own an angel is both comforting and daunting at the same time. When I think of the word angel I think of sweetness and compassion, but the chilling picture that the author describes as the angel of suicide contradicts all my childhood perceptions of angels. In my belief, the angel of suicide is a sign of disillusionment. Suicide has always attributed to depression or cowardice, but to give suicide an angel of its own is essentially giving us a coping mechanism. If someone I knew committed suicide, my initial thought would not be of an angel, but after reading this short story I could see how the topic becomes almost like a fantasy. The angel of suicide is a beautiful, rebellious phenomenon that turns a subject as tense and as ominous as suicide into a gateway to a universe where everything has reason and every reason has an angel. This could be seen as a good or a bad thing, but it all depends on how willingly the reader is to accept the author’s work of fiction.
Loser by Aimee Bender
ReplyDeleteI really enjoyed this story, it was interesting since the beginning and made me want to read the rest. I liked how Bender never put names into the story and I agree with Nydia about how maybe it's because the protagonist is trying to find himself just like he finds those random objects. It's quite a sad story because at the end the protagonist says "come find me" after he helps find a woman's son and I think he wants that feeling, that someone is so desperate to have him back (his parents who drowned at sea). As for the title of the story, I didn't really like it. I understood that the protagonist was lonely and misunderstood but I never got the sense he was a "loser", maybe just a loner or lonely, etc. I think many people can relate to this story in a way, especially those who feel misunderstood or who are searching for themselves.
Brenda Salinas
ReplyDeleteThe story “Loser” was very fascinating to read. I quite enjoyed the imagery that it had. I could visualize everything. I couldn’t help but feel sorry for the boy. He was quite young when he lost his parents. The fact though even after that incident he got the “finding powers” he still felt empty. You would think that; that would help him cope with the death of his parents. The story had to deal with a lot of smelling, and touching. With that he would find the lost stuff. I liked how the author used those senses. For some reason though, when the author wrote about him smelling, I couldn’t help but think about Pluto the dog. The reason why, was because the dog would sniff things to find the missing items, and when he would find it, he would point where it was. Overall the story was nice to read. The author did a good job, writing it. It did a good job with making me feel something towards the young man in the story.
Naomi Muñoz
ReplyDeleteAn Angel by Magaret Atwood
I found the story “An Angel” very interesting and liked the way symbolism was used. I liked how captivating the beginning of the story was and how she immediately puts a face to suicide. She states that she “knows what the angel of suicide looks like” and what I think she means is that she has had an encounter or a possible contemplation about committing suicide. I found it interesting how she sections angels depending on their message meaning that every cause, whether good or bad, has an angel on its side. The angels, in a sense, can also represent the daily temptations some may encounter: one being suicide. She explains this when she mentions the rebellion the angel makes you believe it has to offer when you are near a bridge debating whether to go through with it and jump and experience relief. It is there, in the most saddest of ways, as encouragement.
Loser by Aimee Bender
ReplyDeleteOne aspect of the story that I enjoyed immensely was its uncanny ability to be both humorous and poignant. Bender’s rich exploration of loss works so well because of the strong central character at the forefront of the story.
Due to the young man’s loneliness, he is able to develop a harmonious connection with inanimate objects, but fails to establish any meaningful human relationships. When he witnesses the sight of maternal love—the “Green Star” lady losing her son—it affects him strongly because that’s something that has eluded him since he was a child. The incident produced a flurry of emotions that took the young man back to the moment when he lost his parents. His quest to find things that others have lost serves as a way to cope with his own loss of paternal/maternal love.
One artistic choice that I found intriguing was the approach that Bender took with the dialogue. She decided against punctuating any of the dialogue that’s used in the story, a creative decision that blends well with the theme of missing objects.
Linda Ponce
ReplyDeleteAn Angel
I find this story very intense and feel as if I were watching a thriller movie. I feel like it was written in such way that we could feel the authors fear of the angel. The imagery it uses, gives me clear pictures of what all sort of angels might look like. “Not so the angel of suicide, who is dense, heavy with antimatter, a dark star.” Magaret, describes well that the angel of suicide she sees is not like most others, it is more dark and rusty looking. Although the imagery she uses is strong I feel like the simile that the story uses brings a different aspect to what I had pictured the angel to look like. “From the friction of the air, her face melted off like the skin of a meteor.” This description of the angel is a little weak. I feel like that one comparison, made the image I had in mind totally turn a different direction. I would have personally tried to compare the angel to something more dull, or dark.
An Angel
ReplyDeleteThis story really made me take an entirely different insight to what I believed angels to be. Margaret Atwood begins by introducing suicide with an angel. This dark introduction felt like an oxymoron. For someone like me who was raised to believe that angels and suicide are on two opposite sides of the spectrum of death and after life, I was immediately intrigued at how the “angel of suicide” could even be possible. I also really like the comparison of what most people associate with angels, “the ones in classical paintings, with curls and beautiful eyelashes.” It is interesting to try and imagine an angel who isn’t beautiful. She goes into great detail what this angel is, “a dark star.” Then she finally gets into the real theme here where she explains how every type of angel is a messenger, even “snow angels.” This was so interesting to me because I never imagined suicide to be part of some kind of predestination. Instead I always saw suicide as an interruption in someone’s destiny. But this story gave me a different insight into suicide. It’s something that seemed to be very real to the author perhaps with some kind of experience with this angel.
Gabriela Canales
ReplyDeleteLoser
From the start of this story, I was incredibly intrigued by Atwood’s character development. The orphan boy loses both his parents and he begins to develop these “powers” of being able to discover misplaced or lost possessions. The author leaves the orphan boy nameless throughout the story and this lead me to believe he is searching for something within himself. He looks for others lost items to find whatever he feels to be missing; yet he can’t make a complete connection with anything or anyone. As he reveals about the watch his uncle had given him, he felt is was just a gesture and he felt no emotion. At the end of story the author creates fantastic imagery with the boy still in search of something. “ Everything felt blank and quiet,…if he listened hard enough, he thought he could hear the waves hitting”, he decided to fall back into his moment of solitude, the moment he was at the beach before he parents died.
Pedro Cano (20049610)
ReplyDeleteAn Angel by Margaret Atwood
First and foremost, I really enjoyed the way Atwood completely and utterly destroyed the general perspective on angels. Millions think them to be pure, white souls that only serve the side of good and are supposed to bring happiness upon our lives. But this short-short reminded us of the other side of the spectrum, that there are more colors than just white in terms of angels, as well. If one had forgotten about this, reading this short-short would feel like a resounding wake-up slap.
The power of this story is quickly showcased in the first sentence. Just nine words into the story, and I’m already at the edge of my seat, my eyes wide open as I quickly continue reading. The imagery is so vivid, so crude and grim that I cringed when I imagined the angel of suicide. I wouldn’t want to meet that one in a dark alley.
Those that have gone through the experience of almost committing suicide would relate to this short-short easily. Perhaps it was not the exact vision that she described, but I would not be surprised if it was similar.
There was nothing to dislike of this story. It was short, sweet, powerful, and left a lasting impression in me. It’s just what a short-short needs to be.
Frank J. G. Jr.
ReplyDelete"Loser," By Aimee Bender
I really enjoyed reading this essay, rather than reading "An Angel," by Margaret Atwood, because suicide is for very weak and dumb people. Anyways, the first sentences of "Loser" are similar to how I start my creative fiction stories.
Another thing I like in fictional stories, is for the main character to have a unique power or supernatural abilities, to me that makes a great story like Spider Man. My short fictional story that I am composing for this class, is a being that holds unnatural powers, and that is one reason why I like this essay. In a way I'm kind of similar to the character, because I have a knack of finding out things and putting the puzzle pieces together.
One other thing I liked from this story, is that it showed how you can use dialogue in a short story or essay. I liked every single word of this piece of work. I don't have nothing bad to say about this story, for who am I to critique, I aint no editor.
An Angel by Magaret Atwood made me think very deeply to the point where I began to experience a sort of trip while reading this. Sudden realizations of the truth were apparent when I decided to switch the smooth gray tone of the angel's face to that of a mirror. If you grab a mirrors and turn it sideways at an angel, a reflection is visible yet it was a shade of gray to it. When she mentioned that this angel could have possibly fallen into our atmosphere, I immediately thought she committed her own suicide. Hence the name, the angel of suicide. Everyone has this notion of what the common good hearted angel is perceived to look like. Yet very few fail to realize that there is much more than meets the eye. There's angels of all types and this angel of suicide is no different. It mentioned that she's heavy with antimatter, a dark star. Maybe this was the cause that led her to fall from space, or heaven. She could've possibly jumped off as well. I like how it mentions that her face is smooth like a gray egg. If I can take it back where I relate it to a mirror, and then proceed to the part where you only see her "beckoning to you from outside the window, fifty stories up, or the edge of the bridge". This led me to believe that this angel appears when you're at the brink of extinction. It also mentions that she's a rebellious waitress. How so? I believe her rebellious nature comes from past experience, this angel of suicide didn't have the intentions to become the label given to her. She maybe believes that no person is worthy of this entitlement and rebels against anyone that tries to carry on with the deadly notion. Her smooth face, although possibly dull like an egg could be a blank slate for those that witness her. They possibly see their own reflection when they see her and just how they describe her as a waitress, she probably offers the deal of the night, and brings them their order. The deal of the night could possibly be a talk to the person attempting suicide that their is a way out from this and this obviously isn't the way. The last sentence mentions that they wouldn't believe a thing she said if it weren't for the wings. This is possible true, why not? I wouldn't believe if someone told me they were an angel if they didn't have wings either. The wings solidify that she a person of her word, and is telling the truth about her pervious experiences with matters such as these.
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