Short Stories - Analysed quotes!

The 100% Perfect Girl ‘To tell you the truth, she’s not that good looking, she doesn’t stand out in anyway, her clothes are nothing special, the back of her hair still bent out of shape from sleep.’ The group of three builds up details of how the narrator sees the girl. For him, she is ‘nothing special,’ despite the fact in the title he calls her the ‘100% perfect girl.’ This reinforces the fact that it is a chance meeting of fate which puts the distant lovers together. ‘One beautiful April morning in search of a cup of coffee to start the day, the boy was walking east to west while the girl intended to send a special delivery letter was walking west to east but along the same narrow street.’ This is repeated from the beginning and remind us of what they have been through, in the circular narrative. This is not particularly realistic, but the use of simple language like ‘One beautiful April morning’ and ‘the boy was walking east to west,’ seems like it belongs to a fairytale. This suggests that the writer really wants to talk about the themes of love and fate. ‘Yes, that is what I should have said to her.’ The narrator is relating this story to his friend and the majority of the story is what ‘should have happened.’ The flashback is so long that the reader starts to believe it happened, rather than it being a sad story. This at the end, reminds us that is a story being told to us, with little consequence. ‘This was something sure to be crammed full of warm secrets like an antique clock built when peace filled the world.’ The writer uses a number of strange images in the story. This simile compares her letter to a clock. The narrator also has secrets (the story of how they were together) which he hopes is in the letter. He compares it to an antique clock filled with peace because it seems mysterious and appropriate to somewhere you’d keep your secrets and lost love. The Darkness Out There ‘Are people who help other people just not very nice looking?’ The rhetorical question gets the reader to think about the themes of the story: are beautiful people always good? Are nice people always the ones we expect? This gets us to start forming an opinion at the very beginning of the story. ‘The boy said, ‘I’m not going near that old bitch again.’ This is after Mrs Rutter tells her story, the language used to describe her changes from being positive about the lady to her being an ‘old bitch.’ Mrs Rutter tells them with pride about her actions which Kerry finds hard to stomach and so he uses derogatory language to describe her. ‘People couldn’t remember what her name was, exactly, she didn’t live around here anymore. Two enormous blokes, Gypsy type blokes.’ Sandra, now she’s grown up, has stopped worrying about witches in the wood. However, she is prejudiced and believes there are ‘Gypsy type blokes’ in the wood, based on a story about a rape which is very vague. Language like ‘couldn’t remember’ and ‘exactly’ show that it may not even have happened, but the wood has become the symbol for fear and evil. ‘Kerry Stevens, that none of her lot reckoned much on, with his black licked-down hair and slitty eyes. Some people you only have to look at to know they’re not up to much.’ Sandra makes this snap judgement about him based on his appearance. This is ironic as he is the moral one in the story and he helps people in the Good Neighbours club because he wants to, not for Sandra’s selfish reasons. The way she describes him makes him seem neglected ‘with his black licked-down hair’ or even foreign ‘slitty eyes’ which also tells the reader about her racism.