“Tell me. You think there are still good people in the world? Oh, yes, he said. Billions. It’s just that the bad ones make so much more noise.”
The short story explores human nature, the original sin, and morality in relation to domestic life. Narrated by the unnamed female protagonist she ties the subjects to the Florida environment, her neighborhood, friends, and family. Thus incorporates snakes as a metaphor to the challenges, norms, and aspects of the human experience. On morality, the narrator discusses the concept of good versus evil with her husband as she grapples with the balance between both polarities. She acknowledges that such polarity is necessary but her encounters make her contemplate its authenticity. In the quote, she questions her husband whether there are indeed good people or evilness in people is always there lurking.
“Time would not care if you fell out of it. It would continue on without you. It cannot see you; it has always been blind to the human and the things we do to stave it off, the taxonomies, the cleaning, the arranging, the ordering.”
The stories entail nameless female protagonists grappling with their womanhood or motherhood in the wake of existential dread. In “The Midnight Zone” the woman is a mother with her children in a campsite where she has to face an existential experience, both psychologically and physically. She sustains an injury that incapacitates her unable to protect her children in the same vein she wrestles with the idea of good mothering. The idea of motherhood has been challenging to her and her current state puts her mind on the verge of a breakdown. Thus the concept of time is explored in relation to the human experience; basically feeling mentally stuck and static comes at an expense, as time does not wait.
“She is frightened of her children, because now that they’ve arrived in the world she has to stay here for as long as she can but not longer than they do.”
In “Flower Hunters” the protagonist is also a woman having a tough time coping with the territory of motherhood. Groff delves into the noble yet suffocating duty of motherhood that can be overwhelming particularly for these women undergoing existential crises. The short story also explores the passage of time and the sense of alienation or loneliness that occasionally accompanies it. In essence, accentuated by the guilt she harbors about the inadequacies she feels in maintaining her friendship. It also alludes to the issue of depression, emptiness, and the feeling of insufficiency when it comes to motherly instincts and nurturing.
