Inmate # 48209 Essay

In the creative writing assignment I decided to explore a narrative that revolves around the idea of a connection between one man and his past. In this story, I created a scenario where two individuals become pen pals with one another and begin to write each other letters. Billy is a young boy who enjoys the simple childish enjoyments of life such as the great outdoors who serves as more of a background role in the tale. The majority of tale, however, focuses on a character of the name inmate #48209. Through his name and a series of references and foreshadowing, the reader learns that this character is incarcerated. The character throughout the story deals with the trouble of wanting to know what lies beyond the horizon. As the tale goes on it is revealed that inmate #48209 is actually Billy in the future who is writing to his

past self.
The largest moral argument that is created in this story is the idea of how choices can drastically alter your life and the way you view it. inmate #48209 is battling to comprehend and understand what lies beyond horizon and considers it a divine place. This location serves as a metaphorical representation of what Billy's life could have been. Billy's future outside of prison or separate from his life is often described as a palace and through the description of the sun, is shown that is a place that is truly admired by Billy. By juxtaposing this beautiful promise land with the decrepit plains surrounding the prison, it contrasts the vast differences between the lives that Billy could have lived. Young Billy is used to further emphasize that point by showing a childlike innocence and glee when looking at the world. The birds and ocean seem to always be there for him while the questioning of his future self shows that in the long time to come that the beauty of nature will quickly be missed.
Even with these choices seeming to ruin Billy's life, I want to make sure that it is felt that his life is not as bad as it seems. Inmate #48209 throughout the story shows that there still is some forms of happiness in his life. Whether through the listen of "birds", to listening to stories in the sun, to watching the sunrise while he looks into the great beyond. At one point young Billy says to inmate #48209 that, "you seem happy where you are." This shows that even though Billy made the choices he made and does have his regrets, there still is some happiness in his life. Regardless of the choices one makes, good or bad, it is up to that person to live by that decision and go on living happy and healthy lives.
In Letters to the Past there were several authors that I kept in the back of my mind. Two works that I used as examples of narrative were Slaughterhouse Five and The Things They Carried. Both of these works had the narrative story telling that I focused on in this piece. The Things They Carried I looked as a story that at moments were able to describe the bleak war torn nation of Vietnam with beauty. When a squad mate of Tim O'Brien died, O'Brien described his death as, "almost beautiful, the way the sunlight came around him and lifted him up and sucked him high into a tree full of moss and vines and white blossoms"(p.67). O'Brien is able to describe his own friends death through explosion in a way that is beautiful and poetic. I too tried to achieve this goal by making certain aspects of the prison desire to be around. I tried to achieve this through the poetic language of inmate #48209 in his describing of things such as stories told in the yard, the guards whistling, and the rising sun. This ensures that there is more complexity beyond the idea that one place is the ocean while the other is a prison.
Through Kurt Vonnegut's Slaughterhouse Five, I used the concepts of storytelling relating to time. In the story, the character Billy, who coincidentally has the same name as the character in my story, is able to move through time as he tells his story and is able to understand and make his decisions based on the information gained from this. I too attempt to achieve a communication between the past and present self, even though it is false. Even though both characters in both Slaughterhouse Five and Letters to the Past fates seem set in stone despite their interactions with the past, I try to leave some hope that either Billy in the past or inmate #48209's lives will be change off course or will be improved in some fashion.
As I moved through the creative writing process, I consistently worked on making small tweaks to the story that ended up changing it in a major way. I had had an idea about doing letters between a prisoner and a child for around two weeks but it had not been as fully developed as it now is. I started out simply with the idea that Billy and inmate #48209 were two separate people and that inmate #48209 was a murderer. I thought of instead of focusing on choices I instead looked to make inmate #48209 as almost a martyr for all evil which consisted of him apologizing for atrocities in the world such as kids bullying Billy to Adam and Eve taking a bite of the forbidden fruit. I decided to scrap this idea because I felt that the moral dilemma around the central character, inmate #48209, made him very polarizing and overall a very unrelatable character. I was never able to juggle the idea of validating him giving life lessons to ordinary people, such as Billy, while also having murdered somebody. I instead decided to make it where his crime was not important. By separating the character from the wrong doings that he has performed, I looked to add more relatability to the character by allowing he reader to look more at what he was like when he was younger or what he is like now.
Another issue that I frequently struggled with was what to do with the young boy in the tale.

When I first started juggling with this idea of letters being exchanged between a prisoner and a child, I struggled finding the child's role in the tale. My primary focuses was always going to be on the much more complex inmate #48209, so I struggled with the idea of even including the character in the story at all. I struggled throughout this process, and even after, on how I was to handle the writing styles between an educated man in prison and a child that is in grade school. This issue is one of the reasons why the young Billy serves mostly as a means of comparison because it makes it very difficult to create an overly complex character without a lot of the poetic language that I originally intended to use. I originally wanted the child to serve as an example of innocence and to serve as an audience member to the poetic speeches by inmate #48209. I had actually written around half of the story when I noticed the emphasis that I was placing on the similarities between the two character and at that point decided to make them the same

character.
As I currently work through my mechanical engineering degree, I look at this project as a way to use my imagination to break away from the norms that often confine and limit my creative processes. This project, and other creative writing processes, serves as way to tap into all of the literary analysis and style that has been absorbed over this semester, and our whole lives, and channel it into a means that provides surrounding context as well individuality. As an engineering major, I too often feel like a lot of my creative processes are being squandered. I am able to create my own story through my own medium, otherwise known as my life. This story especially speaks to me as I am recently battling with some decisions that will either wind me up in my own prison cell or the golden horizon beyond. There are many moral arguments that are not explored in texts and by creating a story for yourself you are able to further develop and understand this argument for yourself, but also for others who may be experiencing this issue as well.