Project 3

“Confines of the Island”

No matter what he does, the world is against him. He lives on a bleak, cold, deserted island; the shore meets the ocean and traps him in, away from the rest of the world. He only has the bare amenities that are needed to survive. He rations and picks his food based on how he can feed everyone and stretch the food longer. While he is not physically alone, he feels as if there is no one he can talk to who would understand his issues. The other inhabitants of the island include his bedridden mother and his younger sister, and both of them rely on him for their basic necessities. He works multiple jobs on the island: planting and harvesting food, catching fish, and constantly rebuilding their shelter to protect them from the elements. He works very long days and at night, is responsible for the cooking and caretaking of his family. He is exhausted constantly, and sees no way out of his dark, spiraling fate. However, one morning, he sees a boat in the distance and successfully gets its attention. Suddenly, he hears a faint noise from the heavens calling his name. It gets louder and louder until he wakes up in a pool of cold sweat on his twin mattress. He takes note of his surroundings; the molded walls that confined him from the real world, the bills, notices, and unemployment forms piling up on the messy table, and the frozen dinner boxes littered the floor. He got up to check on his sick mother, giving her the care and medicine that she needed. Putting on his very dirty overalls and coat, he greeted the cold air outside and got his sister to the bus stop for school and paused. The city bustled around him while he stood in the middle of the busy New York sidewalk. He looked and noticed the brightly-lit sign on top of the local bodega. “HIRING”. He was elated, a sliver of hope shot up his spine. He went back into the homeless shelter and cleaned up to look presentable for a job interview. As he started his stroll to the market, multiple thoughts raced throughout his head. Will I be hired on the spot? Will I finally be able to afford my mothers prescription? Can I finally buy my sister a new coat? But one thought stuck in his head and baffled him. Is this what my dream was telling me? Could it be the ship in the distance on the deserted island were his hopes and dreams? Now, his real-life hopes and wishes were coming to fruition.

ARTIST STATEMENT

This story was very fun to plan, write, and edit because it was my own work, without building on the ideas of others. I feel like I really hit home my understanding and knowledge of imagery and metaphors. I tried to incorporate parts of the man’s dream into his real life to create the illusion that he was dreaming of his metaphorical “wants”. That being a better life for him and the people he cares for. He feels outcasted (see what I did there) from the rest of the world and just wants an opportunity to arise. I wrote and rewrote this story in multiple point of views, but felt that the third person view gave the reader a better understanding of how he was feeling. One piece of work that gave me some inspiration and guidance was “The Death of John o’Brien”. The point of view that hovered over John o’Brien gave me a good feeling of how to effectively write in third person in order to give the reader a good understanding of the characters and the story. A couple of challenges I faced while composing my work was deciding on which point of view to use. I fiddled with first person, but I did not feel that it told the story the way I wanted it to. I also told it from the perspective of the dependent mother, but then it was hard to relate to the man and that was who I wanted to develop as a character and make him the focal point of the story. By writing in third person, I was able to relate to all of the characters while still keeping the focus of the story on the man. I have learned throughout these last weeks that there are multiple tools for creative writing, and tinkering with them and fiddling with different kinds of ideas works best instead of trying to force a certain motif, character, or literary device into your work. Because I did not have to mimic other pieces of work, I felt very free to mess with the devices until I figured out what worked best for my story.