This story written by Evan Hunter tells about two guys from opposite clubs, sent to a different kind of a duel. Their intension is to play a game called russian roulette to settle a controversy between the clubs. The game is played by putting one cartridge into a revolver, spinning the cylinder and pulling the trigger beside your temple. So basically the game is about the players luck whether he shoots himself or the bullet isn’t in the top chamber of the cylinder. These two players, Danny and Tigo aren’t familiar with eachother from the past. But they start to talk about their lives and how their club membership has affected to them.

At the beginning of their battle they have a short and nervous conversation. A little chit-chat to lighten their mood. Danny seems to be more nervous and wants to get over with the thing while Tigo keeps talking, which indicates that he is a bit scared of the situation. It is pretty ironic when Danny is going to take the first shot but he is afraid to close his eyes on the moment when he should be more scared of the consequinces that might occur from pulling the trigger. As the game goes on they start to add more bullets to the revolver to increase the odds of to end the insane roulette. The more Danny and Tigo tells about themselves the harder it is for them to continue the roulette.The players also have this one problem in common that helps the story to move on although the true problem behind their words can be seen in the end of the story. Their problem in the beginning was that they didn’t volunteer to straighten out the disagreements between the clubs. And in the end the problem seems to be that they don’t want to be members of a club that isn’t so well received in the community.

In the end Danny and Tigo agrees that they are friends from now on. And Danny asks if they could meet on a known lake with their companions. It would have been awkward if Danny would have asked this before they agreed to be friends after this incident. The very end of the story is very tragic because when Danny is supposed to pull the trigger for the last time before they quit this nonsense they’ve been doing. Unfortunately lady luck isn’t protecting him anymore and Tigo is left in the cold basement crying alone.

The colloquial language in the story is revealed in few lines such as: ”Your old lady born here or the old country?” which is commonly used in unofficial conversations. In counclusion I found this story very interesting, it had such characters to indentify with which made it very nice to read. It is such a shame that the story is so short because I could have been able and interested to read longer story similiar to this.

This story is told by a mother who is afraid of her own son. The story is actually mother’s answer to the letter she has got but the reader doesn’t find out whom the mother is writing to. In the letter the mother tells about her son which she hasn’t seen in a really long time. She tells about reasons that made her scare him.

I think that mother’s evidences are convincing. For example the cat: when the son was 15, there was a cat in their family. But one day this cat disappeared and the next evening the neighbour came to tell for the mother that two boys had done some really bad things for the cat and that probably one of these boys was the son. This is quite greepy. How is so young boy able to cause his own cat’s death on purpose? It’s really understandable why the mother is scared, especially when she also founds a bloody T- shirt from her son’s car.

Mother’s way of telling the story makes the reader a bit sad. It is somehow so touching. She calls her son ”honey” almost every time she speaks to him so she must love him really much. It’s so sad that the mother does everything possible and still the son treats her like rubbish. It’s like the son didn’t have any heart at all.

Even though mother writes that she wished nobody could find her, I think she is still happy that someone wrote for her. This also makes the ending a bit more happier because I think  she got the feeling that someone cares about her. In my opinion the mother is relieved when she finally can told someone about these things. She tells about her feelings really openly so the person who she is writing to must be someone reliable. I also think that the mother writes because she wants to tell the story from her point of view. She wants to tell reasons for her behaviour, for example changing her name. She wants to get her voice heard.

”Why, Honey?” is a short story written by Raymond Carver. The story itself is in a form of a letter sent by a concerned but scared mother to an unknown man. The letter is a bit mysterious because it doesn’t reveal any names except for a Mr. Cooper, Fred and Betty Wilks. Mr. Cooper is their neighbour, Fred is the son’s schoolmate and Betty Wilks is a friend of the mother. At first, the mother sounds very concerned about her son but in the end she says she’s afraid.

The mother is implying too much in my opinion. In the case with their cat, Trudy, dying, she sounds suspisious after her son told not to worry and that their cat was very old.
What comes to the wages, she didn’t really think it through. Why would her son lie about getting more money than he actually got? Maybe he earned it due to working overtime or completing some extra task which made him get more money.
I understand the part when the son bought a shotgun and a knife. However, he said he had been hunting. What if he wanted to take up a new hobby with his mates? After all, he did join the marines later.
I’m not really sure whether the mother got the note about field trip a bit late or her son actually was mad. This part really confused me. This seems to be quite convincing evidence.
Why would the mother be suspecting something due to a bloody shirt? She could take her son to the doctor’s in case he had been shot or if he had been in a fight. Other than that, the evidence is not really convincing.
In the kneeling part the son asked her mom to kneel down so he could show something. The mother ran to her room and locked herself up. Why’d she do that if she wanted to hear the truth? Maybe her son was going to tell something important but she was too careless to hear what her son had in mind. On the other hand, why would her son want her to kneel? He could’ve just asked her to sit down if he had something to say.
The surveillance part sounds like the mother is getting mad instead of her son. I think she was a bit paranoid if she thought that someone was spying on her. Maybe she thought that because she herself had been spying on her son.
Altogether, I don’t think her evidence is convincing. The pieces don’t seem to fit together, atleast for me. Some of the evidence is convincing but some not.

The mother makes her claims seem portentous so she could defend her opinions. She does this by suspecting the worst in every case. Like in the kneeling part she just runs to her room without saying anything. Why would she do that?

The last paragraph gives me the idea of her needing psychological care or someone to talk to. At first she says she wanted someone to know and that she’s ashmed. So at first she seems grateful that she was written to. However, right after that, she starts asking how the writer got her address and that she’s been praying that no one would know her address. So she’s grateful and then again afraid which after she seems quite neutral and asks how the writer got her address. This doesn’t make the narrator more reliable. In fact it makes the narrator unreliable to tell such things to a stranger who maybe could end her son’s career with the information. But nothing was said about the receiver of the letter so it could be a good letter as well.

I think the mother is writing to her ex-husband or to her son. Starting with the words ”Dear sir” suggests that she’s writing to someone who’s rather old so it also supports the fact that she’s writing to her ex-husband. But how could her ex-husband get her new name and contact information? It might be via the son but it also suggests that she’s writing to her son instead of her ex-husband. Once again, the mother says it’s hard because there’s no father in the house. That would suggest that the father is written to. He might’ve asked how their son had worked his way up all the way to a governor or just how was their son’s past.

I chose to pick Harrison Bergeron because it sound so thrilling after reading a couple of lines. The story takes place to year 2081 when everybody is finally equal. Not only before God and law but also in every way. Harrison Bergerons father George and mom Hazel are starring on leading roles in this story.

In that time people were made equal by putting some obstacles to intelligent people. One of them was putting handicap radio on their heads which would send sharp noise to their ears and scatter their thoughts. Second was Handicap bag which was filled with forty-seven pounds of lead and hanged to peoples neck.

Handicapper General was the one who invented the items which would equalize people. In story Hazel thinks that she would be great handicapper general. She would transmit only chimes on Sunday, nothing more and just on Sundays to honor the religion.

Harrison is the main bad guy in this story. He was taken from his parents and put in to jail.He had to escape from jail to commit one last thing. He resembles people about the time when they weren’t so equal.  He wants to be the emperor and also he commands everyone to do just like he says. Harrison snaps out of all his handicaps on live television and gets shot to death whilst his mother was watching it on TV.

In the story Hazel and George different from each other by that Hazel is perfectly average intelligence while George’s intelligence is way above normal, so only George must use those handicap items. That highlights the theme of the story about what is normal and what isn’t.

In my opinion I think that Harrison was already full of this world and also full of picking out that equality. He didn’t want to be the same as everyone else. He wanted to be more. Even thought he died in the end doesn’t mean that he wasn’t happy. I think that he died at doing something what he wanted and that’s how we are all supposed to pass away.

The Last Spin is a short story in Open Road. It was written by Evan Hunter. It tells about two young men, Digo and Danny, who are settling a conflict between their gangs by playing russian roulette. This story is mainly formed of dialog.

The story starts when Danny and Digo face each other around a table in the basement. They don’t want show their real emotions in the beginning to each other. When the game roll forward, they begin to understand each other. The game continues as the same time when the story’s main characters debate about the gang issues. It was a signal that they had bonded in the sort time, when Danny asked Tigo to come with him to the lake, even if they had been enemies. Tigo raised the level and added a second bullet to the gun. He slapped the cylinder and it whirled and the stopped. Tigo put the gun to his head and close his eyes when he pulled the trigger. He heard the empty click and put the gun down on the table. When it is Danny’s third time to pull the trigger, they make a plan to stop the game after it. If the gangs would not accept that they would start their own. The story ends when Danny pulled the trigger the last time and died. At the same same time Tigo put his head on the table and began weeping.

Sometimes the text was diffucult to read, as it appeared in a lot of colloquial language, like example ’street bopping”, what means that when some people fight in the street. The text was still a well-written and rolled forward smoothly. The short story is good in my opinion, even in the beginning of the text it could not get me interested about the plot. The final part of the text hooked me to read it more and more specifically.

The last spin is a short story written by Evan hunter. The plot is consisted of two young men who are in a basement settling a conflict between their gangs by playing russian roulette.The short story is mainly formed of dialog between the two characters of the story, Tigo and Danny.

The story start with the boys in the basement facing each other around a table. In the beginning they are reluctant to show any real emotions to each other but as the chances of the next trigger pull being their last they start to bond. They realise that they are not so different from each other and that their gangs are fighting over nothing. The boys tell about their lives and they can relate to each other. When it is Danny’s time to roll the gun for the third time they make a plan to stop after it and if the gangs won’t accept it they would start their own. They make plans to meet the following sunday as Danny pulled the trigger the last time and died.

Due to the storys heavy consistancy of dialog the language what the boys speak plays a big role in setting the mood for the story. It is consisted of colloquial language such as guns being called pieces and various other words that either are still used nowadays or were used a long time ago in spoken language.

Danny asking Tigo to come with him to the lake was a signal that they had bonded in the short time they had known each other. It took him some time because they were supposed to be enemies. Asking Tigo to come meant effectively abandonning his gang.

It is clear that the short story is from a very different time than ours. The boys are driven to being a gang. It probably offered them a feeling of protection and a feeling of beeing a part of something in a time that things could be very rough.

In conclusion the short story is quite good. It has compelling dialog and the mood for it is set very well.

The story is mainly exchange of letters between woman named Carmen and her grandmother Scottie. Carmen lives in New York with her husband Normy, and her grandmother lives on some island. Grandma often asks Carmen to come visit her back home, but Carmen doesn’t have so much holidays that she could go. Carmen sends money to her Grandma almost every time she sends a letter to her but usually Grandma doesn’t use the money for the purpose it was intended to. For example Carmen sends her money to put burglar bars up to her windows but Grandma buys a new mattress instead because God will protect her from evil. The second time Carmen sends the money for burglar bars Grandma buys a dress for her neighbor’s funeral because she didn’t have anything else to wear. In the end of the short story Grandma finally agrees to put up the burglar bars maybe because there had been a robbery on her friend’s house or because she wants to please Carmen.

Grandma wants Carmen to contact with her mother but she refuses to do that because she doesn’t know what to say to her since Carmen has only seen her mother once. In Carmen’s opinion her Grandma is her mother because she raised her and her brother Richard. Their real mother lives in London but she comes to New York for a surgery and sees Carmen and acts like she is her long lost baby. Carmen’s mother tells that when she came to pick up Carmen and Richard their Grandma didn’t let them go but Grandma disclaims that. I think that when their mother came to pick them up Grandma was already so devoted for the kids that she couldn’t let them go. Maybe she as well thought that they were better whit her than with their real mother who was in her opinion “snake in the grass”. Grandma also says that “The Good Lord appointed me guardian—and look how fine you’ve turned out”.  I got the idea that Grandma was really stubborn and she is very religious and thinks that God will save him no matter what. She tells Carmen to pray for God and she often quotes the Bible. Grandma also asks Carmen to come and visit her and she appeals that she doesn’t live much longer on this earth before “He gathers her onto his bosom”.

Grandma asks often from Carmen that why hasn’t Richard sent a letter to her. And when he finally writes to Grandma he tells a lot of excuses why hasn’t he written and Grandma doesn’t believe those excuses. I think that Richard may have been busy and that’s why he hasn’t written to Grandma. Or maybe he just doesn’t want to read about church and God’s blessing etc.

Text was partly quite difficult to read because there were no commas or full stops on Grandma’s letters and that is probably the reason why the title of the short story is “Full stop”.

Why, dear? is a short story in Open road, the last one of the five stories. It tells about a mother who is scared of her own son. The story begins when the mothers son starts to act differently. The son lies all the time and never tell the truth to his mother. He starts to disappear often and has bought a shotgun and a hunting knife. The comes home late and says something creepy. When the mother ask what is he doing the son wont say anything. He even came home with a bloody shirt one night. The mother starts to bug him and ask where is he and with whom all nights, until the son has a breakdown and start to yell and leaves the house. The mother says that she haven`t seen him, not even once sins that. The boys graduated got married and joined the politics. Later he ran for governor and got elected. Now he`s a famous person that any mother would be proud but this mother is still scared and changed her name and moved away.

The whole story is a letter from the mother to a man who apparently is asking questions about her son.                                                                                                                     The story itself was good and the thing how the mother was writing a letter tells that the truth about her son is coming out to public. The man is who the mother is writing to is most likely a police officer or a detective, who is investigating a crime and the glues lead to the mother son. Why a police officer? The case is that the mother has changed her name, moved away and hid her backgrounds, so you need some kind of access to personal information register.

I, myself liked the story and recommend it to other readers.