Homework 2/18: “The Ride”, “Mrs. White”

Shane Petosa-Sigel 

Eng. 204-A

Homework 2/18: “The Ride”, “Mrs. White” 

“The Ride”: 

1) How does this story work? 

The Ride operates kind of like a jumpy 1^st-person narration, where the main character is always going from point to point in a kind of event-based way. “I reach for the pack. I quit four months ago. He doesn’t question me…” stuff like that. Everything is short sentences giving the necessary information and then moving on. 

2) If the story doesn’t work as well as it could, what is your understanding of what the writer’s intentions are? 

I think the intentions were to make us think about morality and life. 

3) Imagine the writer is sitting next to you. What feedback do you give him/her? 

I think the jumpy feel of the story is good, but at times it make it difficult to figure out who is talking or if the story has changed scenes. 

“Mrs. White”: 

1) How does this story work? 

Mrs. White is about a woman and her husband’s funeral, but the interesting thing is that the main attraction of the story is not the main character. The main character is Zach, a random student, and an outsider to the main event that slowly becomes more and more involved with the plot, rather than just watching it with us. 

2) If the story doesn’t work as well as it could, what is your understanding of what the writer’s intentions are? 

I think the intentions were to make us think about death and the conflicts that cause them. 

3) Imagine the writer is sitting next to you. What feedback do you give him/her? 

I liked how I was in the same position as the main character. Both Zach and I were just outsiders looking in, and in doing so, we became intertwined with the conflicts whether we wanted to or not.