Sorry for the Loss Bridget Keehan

1135 Words5 Pages
Sorry for the Loss In many ways the lives we live are governed by our inheritance of culture, genes and our youth. However, the modern society has by an increasing amount come to judge every person individually and collectively. So to speak some say living is actually just life in a bigger prison. The dynamic of labelling will always categorize by good and bad to maintain law and order, thus resulting in a lot of questions. How can society definitively determine evil, and what is an equivalent for the process of fair judgement upon it? The short story “Sorry for your loss”, first published 2008 by Bridgette Keenan, raises the question of human judgement. The story unfolds with an omniscient narrator with the point of view from the main character. In an unknown small town the prison Chaplain, Evie, has to deliver her first death notice to an inmate named Victor Zamora. As she has never seen him before, and the prison’s faith database does not reveal specific characteristics of him, she is quite nervous. When delivering the news Victor, whom seems to be a good-looking sensible young man, reacts indifferent towards his grandmother’s passing, and is contrary more pursued on redeeming his ill doings. This is shown when Victor asks if he was accepted in the ‘SORRY-course’. As the conversation proceeds, it occurs to Evie that Victor is educated and on the path for re-entering society. She leaves with a feeling of inadequacy, as if she could not reach him through deciphering his character. Or as if the adolescent boy had had superior spiritual insight compared to her. The general themes presented in the text are yearning for freedom, first impressions, judgement of evil in the sense of regret and the use of contrasts. Early in the text the contrast of free and imprisoned is illustrated: “Evie wonders if the shoppers parking their cars or the office workers who
Open Document