CRITICAL ANALYSIS OF THE SHORT STORY ‘YOURS’ BY MARY ROBISON

CRITICAL ANALYSIS OF THE SHORT STORY ‘YOURS’ BY MARY ROBISON -MAHMUD HASSAN

The short story ‘Yours’ is written by Mary Robison. She lives in Gainesville, Florida, where she teaches at the writing program at the University of Florida. The story ‘Yours’ is all about a married couple, Clark and Alison. Mary Robison managed to create a simple but very touching story about life and death, love and compassion. The story tells about a man and a woman, a married couple, who make jacks-o-lanterns out of pumpkins the night before Halloween.
In the story we see that Alison is half younger than her husband. Here Clark is of seventy eighty and Alison is of thirty five years old. There is no indication in story for how long they are married. Clark is a doctor, internist and a Sunday water colorist and Alison works in a children day care center. ‘They were both quite tall and looked something alike in their facial features”. In general logic this very the difference of ages between the two seems illogical but there must be something that tied them in marital relationship. May be this relation occurred out of doctor-patient relationship, maybe he was her doctor. Whatever the causes may be it seems from the story that they love each other and trying to keep other happy by praising one another’s work.
From the story we come to know that they were rich. As we can see in the story itself they are having maid, hipplewhite desk, all these shows their economical condition is not bad. They have padded glider in their house. Even Alison works voluntarily works at a children’s daycare center. Another thing that these couple is not staying with their relatives. Clark’s relatives are staying at North. His relatives are not satisfied with his marriage. It may be because of Alison who is suffering from illness which is not curable at all. That is the reason his relatives used to criticize him every time. Letters were sent to them from them mostly telling that he is an old fool and he is being cheated by Alison. From the story we come to know that Alison became habituated with such languages and that seems ridiculous to her-“the worst thing, the funniest thing, an already opened, extremely unkind letter from Clark’s relations up north”.
The whole story evolves with pumpkins. At the beginning of the story we see there is a description of pumpkin with Alison and at the end again there is a description of pumpkin but with Clark and the whole story is stuck with gutting and carving of pumpkins. But it’s not merely a description of pumpkins; it has a deep symbolic meaning in the story. These faces are important for our understanding of the story. We can see how different Clark’s pumpkins are. Aggressive, astonished and serene, they tell us about the stages, the person goes through when loosing dear people. He knows that he is going to lose his wife Alison. The writer artistically presented this by the following line-“His four pumpkins were expressive and artful. Their carved features were suited to the sizes of the pumpkins.” But Alison’s carved pumpkins are less artful than that of Clark. Allison made two smiling and two sad faces. This reminds us that grief and happiness are two parts of our life and nobody can escape them -”two turned up and two turned down”.
Another aspect of the story is that both of them are trying to make other happy. As we see in the story itself, though Clark’s jack-o-lanterns are more good and artful but he is deliberately saying that Alison’s jack-o-lanterns are better. In case of Alison also we can see that though she is suffering from illness but doing all the activities voluntarily inside the home or outside. She is cleaning up the mess; she is litting candles and so on. This tendency of Alison shows the typical and traditional concept of womanly nature in the society.
There is description of a check that somebody gave Clark as a gift. But it was uncashable because of the sign. Therefore the cheque was of no use. Here question may arise why the writer has given the description of a cheque which is uncashable? I think the writer has tried to show by this uncshable cheque that though there are some things which can be enjoyed and used but because of some hindrances human being can not utilize them, cannot enjoy them although they have strong desire to do so. Here the sign is the hindrance for getting money.
Though this story deals with the death of Alison but there is no description of death until the very end of this short story. Even the characters also are not discussing about the death directly. There is no indication in the story about what happened to Alison exactly. At the age of thirty five only she was using wig. From the story generally it can be guessed that it is Clark who will die because of being seventy eight years old. But at the end of the story we come to know that it is Alison who is facing death. She was suffering from a disease which cannot be cured. Doctor gave ultimatum of certain period for her remaining life. But few weeks earlier than the predicted time Alison is dying here. The death of Alison was expected for both of them.
In the penultimate paragraph there is an unfinished desire to tell something which Clark could not tell to Alison. ‘He wanted to get drunk with his wife once more’. With a greater perspective he wanted to assure Alison that in her lifetime she has missed nothing.
In the story there is a discussion of jack-o-lantern. This is a European and North American tradition where pumpkins are carved and gutted and they create a shape or image. This tradition has relation with Christianity to represent the Christian souls in purgatory. Moreover it is the festival of the dead. In the story we see both of the characters are carving and gutting the pumpkins to make jack-o-lantern. In which they used candle-light in order to create a situation of Halloween to scare the evil spirits.
The most important aspect and unavoidable aspect of human being is Death. The story Yours also discusses death as its major concern. But the characters are not taking this serious issue seriously. It seems that everybody has accepted this death as a general matter of life. We see Alison who is going to die in the story is not unhappy that he is dying or she is not sad at all as she has willingly accepted the death. In case of Clark also it seems that nothing has happened or nothing is going to happen, everything is going on as usual, there is no expression of losing the dearest one from his part until the end. They both are carving pumpkins without talking about the thing that is going to occur to them.
The writer Mary Robison has drawn the natural aspects and various imagery also in the story. The writer has created an image of a house with leaf-littered porch behind it. There is hipplewhite desk in the foyer, an image of face or jack-o-lantern by carving and gutting from pumpkins. From the story we come to know that the season was spring because the night of that particular place was warm. That was the time when most of the leaves had already been blown away and trees also not bothered about that are stood without leaves with them. She has presented a situation of night time when the moon was round above them. I think the writer symbolically wanted to present by this unbothered trees without leaves that the leaves are the most important and necessary part of a tree but see how the trees are unbothered while they have lost their most important part that is leaves. Therefore human being also can do that, they also can lead their life if they lost something of their life.
The story is written in third-person narrator point of view. The writer is telling the story from nobody’s perspective in the story. It starts with third person objective and end with limited omniscient by giving Clarks eternal thought. The third-person omniscient narrator provides the reader a limited insight. For example, we gather from her clothing that she is a practical woman: "she wore durable clothes, usually, for she volunteered afternoons at a children's day-care center,". Setting, symbolism, and point of view create the demanding effect of the story.
The story runs with the conversation between Alison and Clark. The story begins with the description about the couple, their house, cutting of pumpkins and their surroundings. After that the conversation between the two starts. The conversation is very simple and short. There is no kind of deep expression the writer presented through their conversation.
To conclude I would like to say that though the story is very short in size, it has deep meaning that is related with the real life. It deals with life and death, with love and passion. The most important thing is that it has materialized the mentality of accepting the reality.