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Introduction The short story is a potent form that tends to express striking images of human truth.

I see human nature as dark and so I strongly disagree with what is being suggested in this statement. Difficulty in text suggests complexity of meaning or texts that deal with the most difficult aspects of existence, which tend to be dark. Darkness is something we shy away from because it tends to connect to the bleaker truths about our lives and our existences. I would argue that Pulitzer Prize winning author Richard Ford never shies away from either of these representations of difficulty and darkness in his short fiction. Instead he confronts the difficult complexity of existence, while exposing its dark, bleak nature, because he wants to create work that represents the truth of the modern human condition. This can be seen in his story Rock Springs where the character Earl to represents the bleakness and alienation that has come to embody modern existence. Fords similes and metaphors further expose the bleakness of modern existence. His story becomes a fable of the modern condition, confronting the reader with bleak truths that are both difficult and dark. Paragraph One

Wide opening that includes a general statement about the short story form and a position clear statement on the topic. Identifying and explaining my treatment of the topic what I see the key words to mean and how I will approach them throughout the essay. Thesis statements that include reference to the topic, what the author is doing in the text and w hy he is doing it. The text is introduced and the techniques that will be explored are outlined with a brief sense of w hat these paragraphs will explore. Final connection back to the topic what these techniques achieve overall and how that relates to the topic and the argument.


Topic style sentences reference to technique and clear expression of what the technique does. Its always good to show genre awareness. Also introduces the character. This describes of an aspect of the technique (character) and the quote supports the interpretation. Explanation of the quote, with some unpacking and how the technique shapes reader understanding. Consideration of wider purposes and also connecting back to the thesis. Connecting the second example to the first and introducing the d evelopment of the technique. The impact/significance of the quote how it develops the story and how it connects to the thesis.

In order to examine the modern condition, Ford offers up to the reader the character of Earl. His place in the story seems to be to represent the alienation of modern humanity, allowing Ford to confront the reader with the stark bleakness of modern existence. Earl is a classic Dirty Realist character. He is a criminal, who drifts from place to place with his daughter, running from the law in the hope of finding something better. Ford constructs Earls life as devoid of significant direction, starkly outlined in his Earls description of his relationship with his girlfriend: I dont know what was between Edna and me, just beached by the same tides when you get down to it. The metaphor illustrates Earls fundamental loss of control over his existence as it suggests that he is at the mercy of tides, perhaps the mercy of the universe. The image is distinctly bleak in tone and almost suggests that Earl has given up on finding purpose or bringing meaning to his life. Fords crafting of character here nicely reflects modern thinking around existence, such as Absurdist thought, which sees a lack of meaning at the core of modern existence. Fords interest in this loss of purpose is reinforced later in the text when Earl starts self-reflecting, helping us to understand the truth of his position: I was beginning to think of Rock Springs in a way I knew I would always think of ita place where a woman left me, instead of a place where I got on the straight track once and for all, a place I saw a gold mine. Earl had initially seen the gold mine as a symbol of hope, a sign that may mean were getting closer to something meaningful, yet he comes to see the true bleakness of his situation once he sees this thing to strive for us a complete illusion. So Earl comes to represent Fords position on the modern human condition an existence without meaning, an existence where purpose is an illusion. And when Ford directly addresses the reader at the close of the story we are forced into a connection with Earl, where he asks us how different we are from him. Fords use of Earl leaves us confronted by the distinctly difficult and dark thought that perhaps our existences are just as bleak as Earls and that telling stories is as close as well get to constructing meaning in our existences.

The purpose of the technique (what is being represented) with connections to author purpose, reader positioning and finally back to the topic and the thesis.

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