Prompt: Write an entry focusing on an aspect of the story, “Our Children”.

Response: Vanessa Cuti’s short story, “Our Children”, is written in first person. Nothing would be odd about this, except for the fact that the narrator seems to have no sense of introspection. From our discussions regarding characters, the narrator in this story definitely fits in the category of a “bad” character, yet most authors write in moments of introspection for their characters. These moments give us, the readers, a taste of a “bad” character’s more redeeming qualities as well as fleshing them out as a well-rounded character. In Cuti’s story however, the narrator is convinced of quite the opposite while acknowledging that she has done some bad things. Her attitude is, “Yes, I’ve done something wrong and ruined many lives, but I’m the good person here!”, which is, in my opinion, a lot more believable. We, as people, are full of denial, especially when we do selfish things for selfish reasons. As we can see in Cuti’s story though, the narrator acknowledges that she’s done something wrong for selfish reasons, even if she never intended it to go as far as it did, yet she also places blame on others whenever the opportunity presents itself. One aspect of the story that I liked was the lack of dialogue. From a craft perspective, it’s hard to write a story that is based solely on one character’s thoughts, feelings, and descriptions of the world and people around them. It also shows just how little the narrator truly cares about the thoughts and opinions of the people closest to her. We never really hear dialogue from her ex-husband or from her children and we briefly hear from Dan himself. The narrator wants a regular, typical family life where she is a mother and wife and everything is just wonderful. But as soon as she begins to feel a sense of normalcy, or even boredom, she wants to drive fast, smoke some weed, and have sex with Dan “like it was in the beginning”. If we heard from other characters in the story, the narrator may be convinced that something is wrong with her and that she needs to evaluate herself. By just having the narrator and her thoughts, we see just how quickly and dramatically her thoughts progress, from wanting to leave her kids in the woods to grow old in to immediately wanting to “look the part” of a mother. Cuti’s decision to have a first-person point of view is seen clearly in these moments of the narrator’s identity crisis.