After reading the short story “The Man Who Was Almost a Man”
I was left with one lingering question.
The question was: what’s the
point? What is the point of the story? What message did the story send to the
reader? Who benefits from reading this
story? Overall, the story has a nice
flow and is a pleasant read but it ends in a way that turns me off. I understand that not all stories have a
happy ending, but if it is not going to have a happy ending at least have a
clear message to the reader. Hopefully
the message will be one of caution or something to learn from so the reader
doesn’t make the same mistake. But this
story did not provide anything like that, in my opinion. The messages of this story, or at least the
messages that I can see are: don’t shoot guns, don’t work hard and make money
and reward yourself, no matter what you do you can never get ahead in life,
always listen to your mother. These
messages provide nothing substantial that a person can gain from this story,
and that is a bit disheartening. It is
disheartening because after reading a story, a reader either wants a happy heartwarming
ending or a message to learn from. But
this story did not provide either, so a work that could be very good is now
average a best and it is a work that I would not just suggest to a person if
they were looking for a good read. If the
story ended a little differently then I would suggest this to a friend. After reading this story I got the same
feeling I get when I go to a movie that is really good but has a crappy ending which
hurts my view of the whole movies, just like the ending to this story hurts the
whole work.
Just to play devil's advocate here, and in the spirit of friendly debate, I'm going to disagree. :) The ending of the story showed the first dawning of someone who is finally taking responsibility for his own life. He has come to the realization that as long as he lives in the same place he's always lived, amongst the same people he's always lived amongst, he will never break free from the image of a "boy". It's comparable, I'm sure, to the child celebrities who eventually grow up, leave Mickey Mouse Clubhouse, and perform their first sexy music video; the public is outraged, what kind of role models are they being for our children...blah blah blah... but at some point it has to be accepted that Britney Spears is not the same bee-boppin' 12 year old. She's 30 years old, for crying out loud. Anyway, my point is, that sometimes in order to become the person we want to be, we have to break ourselves free from the stigma that surrounds us... and I think THAT was the point of the story. :)
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