Critical Response #6

Kelly Hanken

Critical Response #6

“A Story About the Body”

“A Story About the Body” is a story that I surprisingly enjoyed. I say surprisingly because I normally dislike stories with obvious symbolism in them, but this story makes up for all of those that I’ve not liked. It’s simply told, with only bare descriptions that help you imagine the setting in a vague way, giving you more freedom over what you see. That’s the kind of description I like in short stories, and that’s what I tend to use myself.

The symbolism of the bowl of dead bees is lost on me, but I can give deciphering it a shot. I think that it may be a symbol for the fact that, while the composer’s romanticized vision of the woman seemed sweet and beautiful, like the rose petals, beneath its soft exterior lay the same feelings a bowl of dead bees incites in someone: a spark of fear (are the bees alive?!), followed by disgust and the desire to get rid of them. Alternatively, the dead bees are symbolic of live bees – in that case, the bees symbolize the fact that his dismissal of her because of something as simple as the fact that she had no breasts, stung and left an annoying prickly feeling in her heart.

Then again, I’m no good at deciphering symbolism.