Bullet in the Brain
Anders couldn’t get to the bank until just before it closed, so of course the line was endless and he got stuck behind two women whose loud, stupid conversation put him in a murderous temper. He was never in the best of tempers anyway, Anders – a book critic known for the weary, elegant savagery with which he dispatched almost everything he reviewed.
With the line still doubled around the rope, one of the tellers stuck a “POSITION CLOSED” sign in her window and walked to the back of the bank, where she leaned against a desk and began to pass the time with a man shuffling papers. The women in front of Anders broke off their conversation and watched the teller with hatred. “Oh, that’s nice,” one of them said. She turned to Anders and added, confident of his accord, “one of those little human touches that keep us coming back for more.”
Anders had conceived his own towering hatred of the teller, but he immediately turned it on the presumptuous crybaby in front of him. “Damned unfair,” he said. “tragic, really. If they’re not chopping off the wrong leg, or bombing your ancestral village, they’re closing their positions.”
She stood her ground. “I didn’t say it was tragic,” she said. “I just think it’s a pretty lousy way to treat your customers.”
“Unforgivable,” Anders said. “Heaven will take note.”
She sucked in her cheeks but stared past him and said nothing. Anders saw that the other woman her friend, was looking in the same direction. And then the tellers stopped what they were doing, and the customers slowly turned, and silence came over the bank. Two men wearing black ski masks and blue business suits were standing to the side of the door. One of them had a pistol pressed against the guard’s neck. The guard’s eyes were closed, and his lips were moving. The other man had a sawed-off shotgun. “Keep your big mouth shut!” the man with the pistol said, though no one had spoken a word. “One of you tellers hits the alarm, you’re all dead meat. Got it?”
The tellers nodded.
“Oh, bravo,” Anders said. “Dead meat.” He turned to the woman in front of him. “Great script, eh? The stern, brass-knuckled poetry of the dangerous classes.”
She looked at him with drowning eyes.
For instance, “smell of gunpowder” (Magnus, 6), which is repeated multiple times, is a demonstration of how much the soldier values his war memories, for the solder describes the smell as “stimulating” (Magnus, 8) and “life-giving” (Magnus, 7). At the same time, as the soldier describes war in an enumeration towards the end of the poem, the audience learns his sadness and regret in face to the fact that “No one comprehends a soldier’s work anymore” (Magnus, 28). This enumeration, however, is used to recreate the images that the soldier experienced during his service so that the audience would feel the intensity of war. In addition, the assonance in “knobby bones” (Magnus, 4), on top of emphasizing the bold character of the soldier despite his age, evokes an image of an old, forceless man, which fits well with the beginning of the poem, in which the soldier is portrayed as weak and unenthusiastic.
Academic colleagues like, David Greenburg, would have been exasperated, part from envy of McCullough’s ability in not only story telling but to sell and he would object to the approach of this book. The colleagues would tear at the lack of compelling rationale for an overused topic, as well as the scene setting, and meager analysis.
Dubus, Andre. “Killings.” In The Bedford Introduction to Literature. Ed. Michael Meyer. 8th ed. Boston: Bedford/St. Martin’s, 2008. 107- 119. Print.
In literature of significant standing, no act of violence is perpetrated without reason. For a story to be legitimate in the area of fine literature violence cannot be used in a wanton manner. In John Irving’s modern classic, A Prayer for Owen Meany the audience is faced with multiple scenes of strong violence but violence is never used without reason. All of the violent acts depicted in the novel are totally necessary for the characters and the plot to develop. This plot-required violence can be seen in the novel’s first chapter when Owen accidentally kills John’s mother and in the novel’s last chapter when John relates Owen’s grotesque, while heroic, death to the audience. The violence that is shown in this novel is used in such a calculated manner that it leaves a great impression on the audience.
Dubus, Andre. "Killings." Meyer, Michael. In The Bedford Introduction to Literature. Ed. 8th ed. Boston: Bedford/St. Martin's, 2008. 107 - 120.
The article begins with Anders waiting in line at a bank. The author uses narrative distance in third-person POV, and right away we are taken into the mind of the main character who is forced to listen to the loud and stupid conversation of two women standing in front of him. A typical situation that would annoy just about anyone, but not to the point that it would put them in a “murderous temper,” such as with Anders. The introduction let the reader know that Anders, may not be mentally stable and couldn’t help but to
John Moss, Sexuality and Violence in the Canadian Novel. p. 103 Robertson Davies. The Fifth Business. p. 217.
Stillinger, Jack, Deidre Lynch, Stephen Greenblatt, and M H. Abrams. The Norton Anthology of English Literature: Volume D. New York, N.Y: W.W. Norton & Co, 2006. Print.
Kelly had us watching this man for the past month, what time he leaves his house, to what time he gets to his house. We had to know what time he went to bed to what time he was mostly alone in his mansion. His name was Charles Urschel, wealthy tycoon and businessman but to us he was just a way to get money. James Connor and I accompanied Kelly when he plotted to raid the wealthy man’s home and kidnap him for ransom money. It was a very still calm night, light breeze. It was as if I could sense the nervousness on my partners face but for Kelly I saw nothing. Just the cold, hard, terrifying look that was always on Kelly’s face unless he was with his wife. We waited...
When it comes to death, everyone has a different perspective about it. One might think death is just a beginning, a key to open the door to the afterlife. A release, a way out to a different world. Others might think that death is simply a lesson of life. It teaches one not to waste his or her time but live to enjoy it, while it still last. Live and do whatever one desire before time runs out. Surely, death has many different purposes and meanings. In the short story “Bullet in the Brain” by Tobias Wolff. He uses death as a flashback and a final thought to show the reader the character’s life in the story. In the “An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge” by Ambrose Bierce, he uses death to teach the reader that one should stand up and protect the
Greenblatt, Stephen, and M. H. Abrams. The Norton Anthology of English Literature. 9th ed. Vol. A. New York: W.W. Norton, 2012. Print
The reader is put in the middle of a war of nerves and will between two men, one of which we have grown up to learn to hate. This only makes us even more emotional about the topic at hand. For a history book, it was surprisingly understandable and hard to put down. It enlightened me to the complex problems that existed in the most memorable three months this century.
In short story, "Bullet in the Brain" by Tobias Wolff, we are introduced to the protagonist of the story, Anders. He is a book critic and immediately unlikable. Anders is rude to the bank teller and everyone around him. When the bank is robbed by two masked men they shot and killed Anders because of his defiant and mocking attitude. His life begins to flash before his eyes, and as it does, only one distinct moment goes through his mind: a memory of when he was a young boy playing baseball. An ignorant boy approaches "child" Anders. He invites him to play and says "Short stop is the best position they is" (76). Anders ignores this grammatical error, because he wanted the other boys to like him. The man in the bank and the young boy on the baseball
We soon learn that the narrator heartlessly kill the old man. The narrator had already planned the murder of the old man. Before the murd...
“Our days are filled with a constant stream of decisions. Most are mundane, but some are so important that they can haunt you for the rest of your life.” Travis Bradberry. It is interesting how little decisions people make everyday can change their life. Such is the case of Anders in “Bullet to the Brain” whose love of words and his hatred of the mundane cause him to make bad decisions. The combination of these two elements of his life contribute directly to his being shot. People need to read this story in their twenties, because in a person’s twenties they think that they have life figured out and that nothing can hurt them. This story shows that in reality how a person treats others and the words they chose to use can kill them, because life is not always mundane and predictable.