Astrid Blodgett's Ice Break

Not every marriage or relationship last forever. In many cases people, who are married, develop problems along the way that they are not dealing with properly. Having children complicates this further. Parents often make the mistake thinking that the children cannot sense the issues that stays under the surface unresolved. In the short story “Ice Break” that has been written by Astrid Blodgett in 2012 the reader observes a family, where especially the main character named Dawn notice the growing distance between the parents, and in an attempt to avoid being alone with her father she experiences two great losses.

The short story is not chronologically structured, as the story is one big flashback. It consists of two parts with the first part being the actual trip to the lake with the accident written in dramatic present and the second part being the flashbacks to earlier that day, where the reader gets information about the

The father, despite his problems with the mother and the daughter, selflessly does everything he can to save his children, which emphasizes that the love in the family is strong and continuous in spite of the problems. “He’s forcing me out of the truck, but I grab him, first his head, then his shoulders, and hold on as hard as I can. I don’t want to go without him.”(p.5, ll.130-132). The guilt comes in the form of a five-dollar bill that Dawn received from babysitting. She uses this to bribe Janie into joining her and her father on the trip to the lake. Dawn keeps going back to the five-dollar bill even during the accident. The five-dollar bill is a symbol of the guilt she feels, as her sister died, because she got her to come with them.“I kept waiting for her to say something, to a reporter or me or Marla, anyone, about getting Janie’s clothes back and finding the five-dollar bill in her jeans pocket, soaking wet. But she never did.”(p.6,