Critical Response to Gabriel Garcia Marquez’s One of These Days

Matt Carroll

Critical Response to Gabriel Garcia Marquez’s One of These Days

            In the very first paragraph of this short story the author establishes a few things. The author establishes an environment, a dentist office, as well as the time of day. This creates certain expectations for this story. The character of the dentist is established by showing some of his work as well as his clothing items.

            This seems like a very ordinary character, introducing his son who is also in the office, but the catch in this story, the hook line, is when the son explains the mayor will shoot him if he does not pull his tooth. This caught me as a reader and I am sure this was designed by the author. My expectations of the dentist was that he would agree to pull the tooth, but the author continued to catch me by having the dentist refuse to pull the mayor’s tooth by telling his son to tell the mayor to come in and shoot him. This creates interest of why the dentist refuses to see the mayor. Later it is revealed, but it’s under very mysterious circumstances. The dentist suggests the mayor is responsible for twenty men’s deaths. This is a very good technique to reveal the mayor is corrupted without actually saying in the third person limited form.

            The dentist agrees to remove the tooth, but the author uses certain imagery and setting to show that he does not like it. Also, the description of the mayor’s pain implies the dentist was not as subtle about his dislike of the mayor.

            The author drives the mayor’s corruption home with the final line of the story. In my opinion this is a great finishing line because it reveals that the mayor really is corrupt and has no issue with revealing that he knows he’s corrupt. Just like how the story started, which usually doesn’t work in stories, but worked for this story, the author uses dialogue to finish the story. The plot may not be resolved in the sense of a normal story would with resolution, but it works for this story. Without the resolution of the mayor’s corruption it becomes a story that you really think about. Instead of sympathizing with the dentist, which I thought would be the main character in this story, instead you sympathize with the town the mayor is running. Even with revealing so little about the town you still manage to feel sorry for the people who reside in it.

            The techniques of the author will be useful in this class. The major thing I learned as a writer is revealing things that matter, but not revealing everything and leaving enough for the reader to imply and interpret; sometimes it’s best to show and not tell so revelations can be made. The title was very good as well. I could almost imagine a character like the dentist, or a third character, saying outloud “One of these days I’m going to stop that corrupt man.” This indicates the importance of titles and is something I will consider for the next story I write.