George Saunders’s Sea
Oak starts with introducing the family this story revolves around. There’s
the narrator, who has to strip to earn a living, his sister and cousin who must
juggle studying for the GRE, raising two babies, and watching trash TV, and the
Aunt. She is made to be the most saintly character in fiction. She’s had a
rough life with nothing other than work and taking care of her nieces and
nephew. She is a paragon of hope optimism, and then she dies. It is so sudden
and out of nowhere that it takes the reader by surprise. Especially when we
find out that she was killed by freight. Not the person that robbed her, or the
guns that went off what seems like the night before, but being scared by a
burglar. But it’s ok because she comes back to life and goes back to the
apartment to see her family.
Aunt
Bernie coming back comes out of nowhere and turns this sadly truthful story
into a weird trip. It has great potential for a lot of socio-economic
commentary, and some is there. But because it changes genres from realistic
drama to horro/sci-fi it takes the reader out of reality and thus undermines it
messages.
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