Analyse af Mark Sloukas novelle 'Crossing'

In Mark Slouka’s short story “Crossing” from 2009 a father takes his son on a field trip into the wild similar to the ones he shared with his father. The main character in the story is the father. Through the father’s thoughts and experience, the reader gets an insight on who the father is. Perhaps the father have been through a break up and now he is determined to do something that matters and wants to build up a relationship with his son. The father difficulties are described as “he hadn’t been happy in a while” (l.5). With this narrative technique, Mark Slouka brings the reader closer to the father and we become sympathetic with him and we want him to succeed. The father cares a lot for his son and he seem sympathetic “..when the boy came running into the living room he threw him over his shoulder, careful not to hit his head on the corner of the TV” (l.16-18) Also the son seems to be sympathetic to the reader. The reader does only have access to read and hear the father’s thought and therefore the son is described through the father’s thoughts. The reader creates an image off the son being a sweet, fragile boy that needs his father’s protection. “He looked over at the miniature jeans, the sweatshirt bunched beneath the seat belt’s strap, the hiking boots dangling off the floor like weights” (l.7-8). The way the son is described is subjective and therefore might not be reliably according to reality.