New narcissism – assignment B
Essay based on "A simple exchange of niceties" a short story by Joanne Fedler

"Perhaps the truth depends on a walk around the lake." - Wallace Stevens. This quotation is what the whole short story is about. The main character let her choices of life depends on the park and her bench.
The short story "A simple exchange of niceties" of Wallace Steves is written in 2007. The short story is about a young woman who by accident gets pregnant, without any intention of keeping the baby. But this decision changes when she suddenly one day gets interrupt in her thoughts at "her bench" by a woman. They get into conversation and our narrator quickly learns that this woman is sterile. Instead of abortion, an idea starts to build inside her. Instead of removing to baby, she plans to give it to the woman who clearly is breathing for a child. After she gave birth to the baby she visits the park to look for the woman. But she is nowhere to be found. And it ends up being her destiny to be a mother.

The girl who tells the story is a first-person narrator. She is suffering from low self-esteem, she even thinks of herself as the unwanted child, "the bad news". She is sure that her mother "would have exchanged me for a week's holiday at a three-star resort". She seems very shy and a bit touchy, and because of that, she ends up snarl, and outwardly seems rude and impolite to strangers. And by the same reason she does not have so many close relations. The only close relations we get to hear about are her best friend, Barbie and her mother. Her relation with her mother has never been amazing, most because she always has had a supposition she has been a nuisance for her mother, her whole life.
According to herself, she does not have a problem by sharing, as she says: "I'd give anyone the shirt off my back, or the off my plate." But when it comes down to sharing intimacy, such as the bench, which she considers as "my bench", she backs off, because it forces her to socializing. She likes to think of the bench as it was there for only her, and she consider every person who want to sit at the bench as a personal affront or a threat.
She uses the bench in the park like a breathing space, where she is left to herself with her own thoughts. She regards the bench as a friend. A friend ready to listen, and as she describes it herself "They just sit and wait for you, an invitation that's never revoked." A bench she relies on when she needs a timeout. She is afraid of getting left behind, and that's why she finds a bit peace to discover "her" bench unoccupied.
The narrator's language is very informally, a given example is the use of swearword, such as "fucking" and "trashy" in extension of this the narrator's language is characterized by the use of slang, which for example is shown in line 133: "She seemed so bloody keen on kids."
The language the narrator speaks, is present time language, and could be spoken by any person in the post-modern society today.
After she reveals the pregnancy to her mother, who reacts really happy and surprised, she gets a flash how much her mother in fact loves her. Just like she says herself: "My mother thought there was something about me worth keeping." Through the pregnancy she learns that she is loved, and she starts to look at others and herself in a new way. In line with she becomes more responsible, confident and gets really close with her own mother - she start to grow a new role herself: A mother. This finds expression when she never tempts to use the money that her mother sends, on herself. A whole new love connection is created to her baby. And after she named the baby Summer, we, as readers, know that she is never going to give the baby away. Is is only a temporary excuse to herself, to keep the baby, in the end. For the first time in the story she seems happy.
Through her life, she thinks she knows love. But the truth is, the first time she really experience love, is when she is gather at the hospital with her family: mom and her own daughter.
The themes, which dominate the short story the most, are naturally pregnancy.
For some, it is a battle without victory. For others it just happens by accidence. Another theme which is seen through the whole story is narcissism. She is so busy thinking about getting an abortion. So busy thinking of herself, that she completely forgets all the women out there with one wish: to have a child. But when she suddenly meets a girl with the opposite problem at the bench in the park, everything changes, and she extends her horizon, because she considers giving the baby away. But before she knows it herself she is in a dilemma: Should she give the baby away? Or should she keep it herself? And just like she is used to, she let the bench decide, as the last line express: "But my bench was empty." And here in her decision at her bench, she finds rest for good.

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[ 1 ]. Line 129
[ 2 ]. Line 101
[ 3 ]. Line 24 "I'd give anyone the shirt off my back, or the off my plate."
[ 4 ]. Line 18
[ 5 ]. Line 17-18
[ 6 ]. Line 15-16
[ 7 ]. Line 50
[ 8 ]. Line78
[ 9 ]. Line 153: "And when I told my mother I was pregnant, I guess I didn't foresee that she'd start crying on the phone. Like from happiness."
[ 10 ]. Line 157-158
[ 11 ]. Line 162