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Short Story Stolpestad

980 Words4 Pages

The term stagnation is not uncommon for most people. It is the feeling of being stuck in a routine, where everyday is identical to the day before. Stagnation is the realization that we spend the majority of our time doing the same thing; wake up, go to work or school, which we may hate, return home, go to sleep only to repeat the process the next day. The worst thing about this realization is that it is nearly impossible to break. The routine is now a part of you, and therefore almost unbreakable.

In the short story, “Stolpestad”, written by author William Lychack, we meet a policeman who is called out to put down an injured dog, owned by a young boy and his parents. Later in the evening, the young boys father shows up at Stolpestad’s house to tell him that the dog survived the gunshot. The family had to call a vet to put the dog down.

The setting consists of the coffee shop, the liquor stores, laundromats, police, fire and gas station (l. 4-5). They are introduced as being the only thing in Stolpestad’s life, making it seem dull. Even the weather seems to have become as monotonous as his life; “… another one of those long slow laze afternoons of summer – sun never burning through the clouds, clouds never breaking into rain…” (l. 1-3). Instead of showing …show more content…

It might be Stolpestad, looking back at this unfortunate day of his life, reminiscing. This might indicate that he broke out of his daily routine and is looking back at his dull life from his new one. The narrator could also be an unknown person who knows the daily life of the main character and is acting as a storyteller; “It has nothing to do with this story, but there are days you idle slow and lawful past these houses as if to glimpse someone or something…” (l. 11-13) Another theory could be that Stolpestad is just a symbol of the general individual and that the narrator addresses the reader directly by saying “you”, as if talking to the readers

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