Essay Questions

What deductions can you make concerning Earl based on his resolution to move to Florida? - “Rock Springs”

Earl is a dishonorable felon: “Edna and I had started down from Kalispell, heading for Tampa-St. Pete where I still had some friends from the old glory days who wouldn’t turn me in to the police. I had managed to scrape with the law in Kalispell over several bad checks-which is a prison crime in Montana.” Earl is palpably dodging the police for he is conscious of his engagements which amount to lawbreaking. Additionally, Earl confesses, “I had once been in jail in Tallahassee for stealing tyres.” Earl’s preceding incarceration does not daunt him from engaging in additional felonies. He states, “I’d gotten us a good car, a cranberry Mercedes I’d stolen out of an ophthalmologist’s lot in Whitefish, Montana. I stole it because I thought it would be comfortable over a long haul.” Earl’s explicit concession settles Earl’s inherent affinity for lawbreaking propensities.

Deconstruct the narrator’s ideology of love. - “Sweethearts”

The narrator concludes, “I knew what love was about.it was about not giving trouble or inviting it. It was about not leaving a woman for the thought of another one. It was about never being in that place you said you’d never be in. And it was not about being alone. Never that. Never that.” The narrator suggests that categorical love should elicit harmony instead of undeserved distress. Further, changing women often is not an indicator of unequivocal love. Moreover, love should involve long-standing, unwavering companionship.