The Duality Of Life In Amy Hempels 'Short Story Going'

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In Amy Hempels’ Short Story “Going,” our journey with the narrator travels through loss, coping, memory, experience, and the duality of life. Throughout the story is the narrator’s struggle to cope with the passing of his mother, and how he transitions from a mixture of depression, denial, and anger, into a kind of acceptance and revelation. The narrator has lost his mother in a fire three states away, and proceeds on a reckless journey through the desert, when he crashes his car and finds himself hospitalized. Only his thoughts and the occasional nurse to keep him company. The narrator soon gains a level of discovery and realizations that lead to a higher understanding of the duality of life and death, and all of the experiences that come with being alive. …show more content…

In the beginning the narrator concentrates on a typo on the hospital menu saying “…They mean, I think, that the pot roast tonight will be served with buttered noodles. But what it says…is that the pot roast will be severed…not a word you want to see after flipping your car twice…” (Hempel 53) as if he’s trying to keep his mind off of everything. Nevertheless, the narrator continues on to speak regarding his memory, the realization of eventual death, and the duality of experience. Although from time to time, as a coping mechanism, he restrains himself from getting too serious—by means of making jokes on the surface—he finds himself plunging into deeper meaning.
Memory is one of the overarching themes of this narrative, and within that we identify one of the first examples of dual experience. On one side of the coin lies what indeed happened—Being in distress, becoming intoxicated, driving away while gazing through binoculars in a truly reckless manner, and all while coping with a devastating loss. Now exploring the other side of it, as in what we wish to remember—the narrator says this in regards to what he

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