FINAL VERSION Critical Reading

 

Critical ReadingNoah Nishihara T09

The bus driver ‘would never open the door of the bus for people who were late’as he had an ideology. It was not because he was mean, as all people thought. This driver’s ideology was well-reasoned and chose the ‘good of society over positive reinforcements on the individual level’. Late people would just have to ensure that they came on time in the future. He chose the interests of the larger population of early people over the interests of the smaller population of late people.

The bus driver’s eventual change of mind connects with the title of the story through his awakening of the memories of the past. He had wanted to become God before choosing to drive buses. He had forgotten his promise that he would be ‘merciful and kind and would listen to all His creatures’. The title is the story about a bus driver who wanted to be god.This refers to the bus driver remembering memories of the time when he wanted to be god. He had wanted to be god in the past but was now a bus driver.The memory of his promise that he would follow ifhe became god won over his ideology. He may have suddenly wanted to become god again.And to become god, he would have to follow his promise evenbefore becoming a god. (Since it had not worked in the past, before he became a bus driver.)

The author creates sympathy for Eddie despite presenting him as ‘lazy and wasted’ by writing about various other good qualities of his character. These included him being a ‘nice guy’ through the manner of his apologies in the restaurant that he worked in as assistant cook. He would serve food that was not ‘too great’ to the table himself and apologize.

The author also described the way Eddie ran to catch up with the bus and why he was doing so. He had never tried to catch up with the bus before. That passage allowed us to understand why he was ‘lazy and wasted’ and what the phrase really meant.

The techniques the author used to involve the reader in the text were varied and located in various parts of the story. The beginning was very direct and engaged the reader’s attention immediately. The title was very unique and gave the story a somewhat deeper meaning overall. The way the story was written resembled dialogue. Use of the words ‘This’, ‘this story’, ‘Now’, ‘And’and ‘stop reading here’ were the main keywords that gave the whole story the feeling of someone reading out or telling you the story in real life. Storytelling is, after all, people reading aloud to other people.

There was no actual dialogue in this story. Conversations between any of the characters would be unnecessary for developing ideas in the narrative. The main characters were the bus driver, Eddie who ‘should have suffered the most from the driver’s ideology’and ‘Happiness’, the girl who made Eddie wait on the bench for almost two hours.

The girl who tried to finish the entire portion of beef was given the nickname or metaphor of ‘Happiness’. This was used several times in sentence structures that are normally used for ‘happiness’. This includes ‘happiness was at stake’ and ‘pursuit of happiness’ as well as ‘Happiness couldn’t come’. ‘Happiness already had a boyfriend’ was the last usage of the word in the story. However, readers are told that Happiness stands for that girl in the first appearance of the word.

EtgarKeret used simple everyday words found in casual conversation to describe everything that occurred. Examples are ‘which was a pretty good one’, ‘trillion’, ‘million’, ‘really nice guy’ and ‘stupid owner’. His use of – in and didn’t even say thank you, he was so out of breath.- sounds like a person talking when they are out of breath. - Quick and sharp due to the lack of breath available to create sound.

It was a very memorable plot with very original techniques that Etgar used to create a story that could be placed at the front of a short story collection. It truly belongs at the front. Bus drivers will like it.