Essay about ’The Order of Things’
Love can hit you like a tornado. Both create an aftermath in which you can often find yourself totally reset, with new ground rules to play by. The short story ‘The Order of Things´, written by Judy Troy investigates themes such as the resetting of a mindset, the value of our short lives, but most of all: love. This essay seeks to focus on the setting, the two main characters, their relationship and symbols to underline certain points of the text.

The setting in this short story takes us to the small town Worland, which is located in the state of Wyoming, USA. As with most small towns in the United States, we get the feeling that it is a town where people have close relations with one another. For instance, the first line of the story mentions “…the first inning of the Worland Lutheran softball game…” as the place where our characters Lucy and Carl meet. The fact that it is a Lutheran softball game points towards Worland being a religious town as well.
The story takes place over about half a year, from August to around February. This makes for some interesting use of the weather, which is used to underline certain points and moods: “Then in bed, with the sound of rain on the thin roof, they talked about their marriages.” (p. 8 l. 60) Everyone knows the sound of rain dazzling on a thin roof. It screams intimacy.
Intimacy is something Carl has never really been used to dealing with. He is the result of a rushed marriage without intimacy: “… they held hands, which was something he had never done with his with … he had never until now been someone who touched another person easily.” (p. 8 l. 44) Carl is a minister, which requires certain ethical standards. For instance he refuses to meet up with Lilly in his church, something that later changes because of the nature of Carl and Lilly’s relationship. These ethical standards go