Corey Cambell's Short Story 'Pool'

Analysis of Corey Cambells “Pool”

Corey Cambells short story ”Pool” is a psychologically interesting story. To understand the plot of the story you have to go into depth with the characters, and their personalities. The reason I have decided to discuss a few points I find interesting in “Pool” is that I personally find the way the characters think fascinating.

Let’s start off with the main character Darla. A young woman who is in a relationship with Jon. She is in a stressed situation, since her and Jon’s condom broke the other night, in which she is worried that she became pregnant. From the text we can see that she follows her emotions, and when something is uninteresting she leaves it. We can see this in the quote “…. So she didn’t have to care that much

I would say it is because of the way she sees the relationship. She states that the relationship will not last long (p.1 l.12) which could lead to her indifference about the relationship. We can also tell that she does not feel that he is always there for her, for example, “Whenever she got very sad, which happened sometimes, Jon acted as if leaving her alone was the best thing.” (p.4 l.139-140). We can also tell from the way the sentence is structured how she does not like the fact that he leaves her alone. “Jon acted as if..” the word acted can also be used in a negative sense, which makes the most sense in the context. This emotional distance they have between them could easily be the reason she shows her naked body to Trevor - a good friend of Jons. Although the relationship might be strained in the situation it is in, we can tell that they do like each other since they make jokes together (p.3 l.104). The way each of them think separately is also a factor in how their relationship works. Because they think in in different ways - like most people - she probably feels as if the relationship is crumbling, and