Analysis of Jeffrey Archer's short story 'A Wasted Hour'

The short story, “A Wasted Hour”, is written by Jeffrey Archer an English novelist, former politician, and peer of the realm. Jeffery Archer published his collection of short stories called “Tell Tale” in 2017 where “A Wasted Hour” was included. My focus is going to be on the narration/point of view, characterization and the themes and message.

Kelly is a student at Stanford University, she studies modern American literature. Kelly wants to be a writer, so instead of taking a public transportation to the university, she likes hitchhike on the freeway, because she believes that it’s very important to hear and learn about other people’s lives, if you want to be a writer. Kelly meets this elderly man named John, on the freeway who is willing to give her a ride to the university. Kelly starts asking John some personal questions to see if he got any valuable life experience, she could learn from. Kelly quickly finds out that John is a very interesting man who has lived life to its fullest and experienced many unusual things, like reporting on two wars - World War II and the Vietnam War, the Civil Rights movement, and while having a complicated relationship with the US government. John also been thru three marriages. Kelly absorbs all of Johns life experience, to maybe us it in the future. Right before John dropped Kelly of at the university, he gave her one last advice “don’t be in too much of a hurry to write the Great American Novel. Get as much experience of the world and people as you can before you sit down and put pen to paper” (145-146)