ANALYSIS OF THE STORY "THE ONLY WAY OUT IS THROUGH" BY ALETHEA BLACK

Societies nowadays are changing continuously, cultures are changing, people are becoming open minded, technology is modifying the way to live, and even families foundations are becoming something new, where the role of parents become less authoritarian, the nucleus of the family got a little bit broken and the new generations of children are growing up without the same company that children used to grow up with, years ago.

Thefact that families are becoming so dysfunctional and a whole chaos is a fact that is affecting the evolution of different societies and the development of humanity in general, however, it may have different causes that brought families to this point.

With this work will analyze the possible reasons that brought the family of the story "The Only Way Out Is Through"by Alethea Black, to that unstable point told in it, and we will go through some hypothetic causes that drove Fetterman to live the moment he lived with Derek, his son.

To start, let´s go back on time to analyze the relationship that Fetterman had with his father, when he was young, due to, in spite that I talked about relationships parents-children and that I said that before they were stronger and lovely, or at least most of them, the relationship between Fetterman and his father, as said in the story, was cold and broken.

They did not share enough time together, and the role that Fetterman's father should had had become just an illusion, it become into a ghost that, directly or indirectly, left an empty place and a big mark in Fetterman's development to live, thing that can make us think that one of the biggest and the principal causes of Fetterman's problem with Derek was that shade and memories that did not let him grow adequately and that did not help him either to become a good father or at least, to know how to deal with Derek, his problems and his teenage.

Moving on, the analysis of the possible causes that make Fetterman's family to get the situation they got, put as target to analyze the kind of life that Fetterman lived with Carla, and the way how Derek was conceived.

"We didn't want you, you were unplanned. We had only been married a month when your mom found out she was pregnant. Things were just getting going with my job..." (Black, 2011), were the words said by Fetterman in the moment that Derek was going to kill himself. These words should be so shocking for a son, to know that you were a kind of difficulty for your parents it is something that immediately will let, a son or a daughter, feels not welcome in a family, rather a problem and anobstacle for them.

Sadly this is something that with the time becomes a common denominator in new generation of young families, because, usually, those young families are composed by people really young, with no job, sometimes no studies, that still have the desire to live wild, and to do not acquire responsibilities that tie them or limit their freedom.

The way how a family appeared and is creating, it is one of the strongest causes why families are getting so dysfunctional and a completely disorder, because people that are setting up families, and that are doing it because of a fact that suddenly happened, and not because of they feel they are ready and they want to build one, what makes the role of parents to be something mandatory and tiring, which usually will be felt by other members of the family and that will make the atmosphere tense and not harmonious.

To close, another cause to go through in this analysis is the role of the society and the influence that it has in teenagers' life, represented by, friends, schools, media, etc.

As said at the beginning of this analysis, it is not a lie that societies in the world are changing, and some of the most vulnerable cohort that is affected by those changes, since long time ago, is minors. This is a fact that is that will show its consequences, is in future generations, because when a child is brought up in an permissive atmosphere, full of range, hate, disrespect, bad friendships, and the most important thing, without love, the descendants of those generations will be brought up with the same feeling and with an existential crisis, because they will not have the foundations that family provide to develop an harmonious and productive life.

Concluding after had analyze some of the possible causes that might affect the development of a family, we can say that it is not just one specific cause the one that make families be broken and dysfunctional, but all of them as a whole. Because each of the possible causes we went through, with hundred more that left, affect in a way or another the creation and development of a family, and that must be kept in mind to success and to provide better human beings to this society that is facing risky and decisive changes.

Questions to Answer:

Issues Particular to this Assignment:

1. Do you agree with the writer's assessment/analysis of the story? Why or why not?

2. What specific element(s) of fiction does the essay address? (i.e. characterization, setting, perspective, theme, etc.)

3. Identify areas in the story that the essay does not mention that you feel are important. What have they missed or neglected to mention?

4. Identify areas in the essay where the writer has quoted or otherwise referred to specific lines or wording in the story. Have they used the quote sandwich method each time in order to introduce the information and give commentary on it? If not, then mark on the paper areas that need more work.

Issues in any Academic Writing:

5. What is the essay's thesis statement (main point)?

6. Does the essay have a separate introduction, body paragraphs, and conclusion?

7. How does the essay's introduction draw you in and make you want to read the rest of the essay? If it doesn't, suggest some ways the writer might make it more engaging.

8. Note the main idea of each paragraph-rephrase each main idea in your own words.

9. Indicate any areas where the writer seems to drift off topic. (Each sentence within a paragraph should further the main idea of that particular paragraph-and all main ideas should support the dominant impression of the essay as a whole.)

10. What did you particularly like about this essay? What do you feel are its strengths?

11. Identify one area you would be sure to work on before handing in this essay if it were yours.