Allison Hartsell

SSRJ #1: Straight

       Straight's short story Mines made me feel both sympathetic for the protagonist Clarette, and overall upset. She is in a difficult situation, with two young kids and a decent-paying but emotionally taxing job, and she can't quite find a way out. The element that stood out to me most was the tone. It is grim but determined; the sentences are short, and often not even technical sentences at all: “Big roundhead fool magnets”; “Nothing in his skull”; “twins. Girls. EGYPT and MOROCCO.” She tells her story with the tone of an curt person talking. Nothing occurred in the story that is similar to my life, however, I completely understand the feeling of being deeply unhappy with life but carrying on anyway.

       Susan Straight uses the setting of Mines to parallel Clarette's life. She is a correctional officer in a youth jail, and most of the story takes place there. Although Clarette simply works in a correctional facility, rather than being incarcerated in one, she is imprisoned. Clarette has two young chidren she must take care of—she is the dutiful, responsible sort—and her husband isn't much help. Finally she has found this job, that offers “bennies” and a salary, that allows her to be home when her children are done with school, but she is trapped. The very fact that her job is stable makes it nearly impossible for her to justify trying to find a different job that wouldn't make her so miserable. She is stuck there just as the prisoners are. Clarette is also trapped in her unhappiness; she rises early to work, gets off of work in time to greet her kids after exiting the bus, and spends the rest of her time drudging through household duties, exhausted and headache-plagued. The story doesn't even mention how a weekend might be for her, as though each moment she is working on behalf of somebody else.

       One part of the story mentions Clarette going to college with her friend Tika, and how Tika is now teaching, whereas Clarette “married Ray.” Does the character seem bitter about this decision? Like the mere mention of it suggests that Ray is also a job, and not one she enjoys?