Analyse af 'Save as Many as You Ruin'

How often do you reflect upon your own life? Which direction are you moving at in your life, and which experiences and achievements do you want to attain? Simon Van Booy’s short story from 2007 ’’ Save as Many as You Ruin’’ elucidate exactly this theme. The short story is about the main character Gerard, Gerard is on his way home from work at his office in Manhattan. The whole Manhattan is covered in snow, and Gerard therefore contemplate of those times the city was not completely coated with snow. He imagines how his footprints in the snow eventually will disappear just like his life. Inside Gerards’ head establishes thoughts about whether or not his life even is special in any matter.

Gerard have throughout his whole life been together with many women, but he has only been truly in love with one person which is a woman called Laurel. At the time Gerard doesn't live with a woman, but Gerard keeps thinking back on his life and how it has affected his present. He starts thinking about the women has been with, but he would actually never love them. Gerard would only love Laurel ‘’He has slept with a lot of women’’ (p.1, l.34) I think that throughout the story the mood switches completely. At first Gerard seems almost careless, he thinks of how his footprints in the snow soon will disappear. Later the mood alters since Gerard recalls Laurel, and Gerard then becomes more sentimental with his thoughts.