Wreckage of Reason

"Numbers" is by Gwen Hart. In each of the eight stories about her and her husband, Hart uses numbers as an avenue to explore their relationship. Most contain numbers that are significant to her intentions, but 4 does not. In story 4, there is a conversation between a woman and her husband about the pictures on their refridgerator of Harrison Ford, Clint Eastwood and Paul Newman. Her husband says that Robert Redford is missing and should be on the fridge. The numbers in story 1 are all reversals of each other and are 27 apart: "14 and 41, 25 and 52, 36 and 63, 47 and 74, 58 and 85, 69 and 96." It is probably a reference to their age difference and the older will probably be dead. Story 2 reference's Dominique Swain, who played Lollita in the film of the same name. Her husband says "The actress who played Lolita. That was no sixteen-year-old girl." She responds emphatically that it was definitely a sixteen-year-old. This is hinting at the idea that her husband is attracted to this young girl, making him analogous to Humbert, the incestual step-father. In each story about her and her husband, Hart uses numbers as an avenue to explore their relationship.

In "Cottage Life" the author, Marsha Tupitsyn, has three characters: the woman writing this piece (it seems like a letter), the reader is the person this piece is addressed to, another man (referred to only as "he") and his brother. The woman says:
"A Truro cottage had me in its corners. you chose a ridiculous sized house. Like a little cottage for elves. Meanwhile, I'm almost six feet tall."
This is the only reference in the entire piece to a cottage so the title implies that the events that happen in this story are the result of living in a "cottage." The "cottage" was too small for this woman, who may be tall, but is most likely a reference a a confined, sheltered life. She doesn't seem to be too fond of the reader, indicating she had a lot of shame or negative feelings toward her body and her appearance. Referring to a birthmark, she says "Showing it to someone new mortified me every time." In the same paragraph she introduces the man, who is awestruck and emotionally moved by her physical beauty. She ends up living with this man in a house that is small enough that they cannot "keep our fights to ourselves" when his brother comes over. It is interesting that she ends up in a small house again, but she does not seem as negative about it, despite the fights.

Fiction Packet 2

The title of Brian Evenson's "Internal" is a three-way play on words. The story is about an intern who is sent by two different doctors into isolation to secretly observe their brothers. The intern begins to analyze himself/herself more than the other person (in the first instance, there wasn't anyone to observe). So the focus becomes the intern self-diagnosing, hence "internal." After reading the story you get the impression that this intern may actually be a patient, so the intern may actually be interred at a at a facility.

The idea that the intern is actually a patient hinted at near the beginning when Dr. Rauch refers to the intern as "hardly the typical intern" and the other interns do not explain anything, they just shake their heads. Another indication is that in the intern is always in isolation, never living with anyone. The only mention of color in the story is when the intern describes his first room as "The walls are ill with dirt, cleaner white squares scattering them..." By the end of the story, the intern is definitely disturbed, projecting his motivations on to the person in the other room and plotting to stab the other in the eye when they try to observe.

Evenson also manages to mock Psychology as a psuedo-science throughout his story. Dr. Rauch has a system of pure types and each person is a combination of these pure types. The problem is that "Rauch has declared the types infinitely expandable." Making his system incapable of making generalizations. The intern then analyzes himself according to "Eater of chowder type" and "giving the address type." The generalizations are so specific they would be functionally useless. Dr. Kagen's system is no better, analyzing posture to understand "the patient's basic conflict." The intern spends a considerable amount of time arranging his body into a posture that conveys mental health and stability.

Evenson uses words like "covert" "mystery" and "conspiratorial" which gives the reader a certain degree of paranoia. Paranoia and isolation are two characteristics of people with schizophrenia, and by the end of the story Evenson had me feeling a little crazy too.