'A Critical Analysis Of Kim Church's Bullet'

Humans react to their surroundings, thus shaping their own behaviors and thought processes. “Bullet” by Kim Church examines the relationships between the narrator and two other men, as well as the role of bullets in her encounters with them. The first man, Hobart, is her husband who displays abusive tendencies, while the second, the man who robbed her store, uses violence in a very different way. Hobart prefers the use of brute force to achieve the narrator’s submission, but the robber gains victory through mental manipulation. However, in her encounters with both men, the narrator fixates on the object that they both possess rather than their actions. After each encounter, the narrator says something that implies she will eventually outlast or

The bullets that were used to subdue her become symbols of her own survival, influencing her behavior and causing her to choose patience and inaction over haste and action. The passage opens with the line “I know what a bullet can do.” To most people, this would automatically conjure images of dramatic violence such as “gaudy wounds, geysers of blood, arms and legs flopping, life kathumping to a close. TV bullet drama.” However, the narrator chooses to focus on the “not-so-spectacular ways a bullet can work.” This establishes the foundation for the rest of the piece, implying that bullets have irrevocably changed her in some way. She then begins to describe her husband Hobart, who “wore a bullet on a chain around his neck” and had “red skin from the sun and drinking.” It is important to note that the first thing she says when she describes her husband is the bullet on his chain, which is unusual, but distinctive. Not only does it reveal his attachment to violence, as seen by the bullet, but the things that one is identified by are usually the things that capture the very essence of that person. Given the narrator’s