Analyse af John Updikes novelle 'Outage'

1. Summary: it’s about an autumn storm in New England and how different people react to the storm and its consequences. In the story we follow one man in particular – Brad Morris. He’s a normal man working at home, while his wife is running a boutique on Boston`s Newbury street. The night the storm breaks out, he’s working at home. All of a sudden his computer dies and all electricity is gone. Brad goes out to see if he can repair it, but he can’t. Instead he drives to the city and tries to go to the bank and the post office, but the electricity is out, and nothing works. Then he goes to the health- food store and gets a bag of nuts instead. On his way home he sees a woman walking out in the rain, and suddenly he sees that is one of his neighbors- Lynne Willard. He goes with her home to help her shut down the burglar alarm, but that’s not the only thing happening at her house, Brad and Lynne ends up kissing. But when the electricity comes back, Brad leaves Lynne alone and goes home.

2. Characterize the two main characters: The first character we get introduced for in the story is Brad Morris. He lives in New England together with his wife Jane, who works at a boutique on Boston’s Newbury Street. Brad is managing his work from home. You can read from the text that Brad is a man who needs to have something to do (for example when the storm breaks out he’s worried about having nothing to do, so he quickly finds something to do).But if he can’t do anything he is amused by his impotence in the situation. In the story we get a picture of Brad as a “player”, he likes women a lot, though he has a wife, he is still flirting with most of the women on his way. With Myra in the bank, Olivia in the health-food store and at last Lynne Willard who he meets on his way home and ends up kissing with. But at some point he gets his common sense back and stops the kissing before it gets too far, and goes home.