Classmate Response: Week of 3/14/11

Surangi Perera: Random Impulse


The alarm has been ringing for the last half an hour. I finally get myself out of bed, get dressed, grab a coffee and head out. It was just another day. The weather was a lot warmer; I guess at least something is changing. I wave at Mr. Crickleton on the way to work. That’s quite the usual too, he is always reading the newspaper outside when I’m walking past. I picked up my green gloves on the way inside the farm and walked over to the cage in the far left. It was a routine now; I have done it for so long. I pulled out the chicken amidst the screeching and struggling. I’ve learnt that if you hold it just below the neckline, none of its struggling will ever work. The rest of my day is gruesome. I’ll spare you the details and just say there’s a lot of blood and awful smells. People always ask me how I can do this every day. They ask me, Hans do you no feelings? It’s a job, a job alone, I tell them. I can’t please everyone. I have to empathize with either the suffering chicken or my suffering family. The choice couldn’t be clearer. I leave at the end of the day, money in hand.

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I thought this was a very successful snapshot of the life of someone like Hans, who has to rationalize this occupation every day in his head and to others. You did a particularly effective job of giving us just enough information that we understand what he does and how he feels about it, without flooding us with needless details that detract from the succinct point of the story. You didn't glamorize him or vilify him but presented him as is, which is the perfect approach, I felt, for this sort of snapshot story. As far as things to improve on, maybe go back and check some of your punctuation and grammar. I like that you left out the quotation marks for the question people ask Hans and think the narrative flows very well without them, but like we discussed in class, keep in mind that some readers might be thrown off by it. Also, I think perhaps the sentence "The choice couldn't be clearer" isn't actually necessary in this context, since the sentences before and after both deliver the message to the reader. You could probably leave it out. Great job!