Curtain Up

In my creative writing class last year we were also required to write a short story. My end product ended up being about 24 pages. I loved the writing process so much while writing my fiction and was very happy with the end result. For this class, I would love to re-work that original story for our short story assignment. For the Curtain Up homework assignment I will write a portion of one of the scenes from my story titled Reflection.

How do you measure the success of a woman? The significance of her life? Through her family, her husband, her children, her home? Oh, did I believe in these words once. I aspired to be these words; to exemplify these words. Married by 24, my first child by 25. A beautiful home with blue shutters in a quaint development in the suburbs. It was always my plan, no second thoughts about it. These words were more important to me than my own dreams, ambitions, aspirations, goals… I forgot the meaning of those words a long, long time ago. I lost myself, who I really was, a long, long time ago. I was fine with this too, completely fine; until I realized I had nothing. I have nothing…
I am a 39-year-old woman. I am in a loveless marriage. I have been married for twelve years and my husband has been having an affair for seven of them. I knew this for the past five years but I chose to do nothing about it. I’m not completely sure why. I do know that it gives me a sense of freedom, less pressure, a release in a way. I have no children, we just could never decide if it was the right time and now it’s too late. I wanted to be married by 24 but 27 was when it happened, children by 25 but it never happened. I live in an enormous home, which I spend most of my time in, alone. I write ads for a store catalog so I work from home. My husband travels a lot, or so he says. I don’t really ask questions. So, I am 39 years old and I am alone. I am far away from my family. I miss my family, my mother…
I cry myself to sleep, more so to sickness, night after night. I wait until my husband is sleeping and I go into the bathroom, lay on the floor, my face staring up at the ceiling, and I cry. I sob. I cry so hard and for so long I go blank after awhile, completely blank. My head, my mind, is empty. I forget where I am and why I’m there. I cry until I can’t cry anymore, I cry until it is physically impossible for one more tear to fall from my lifeless eyes. When I reach this point, this state of emptiness, I go back to bed and fall asleep in about 10.5 seconds. I look forward to this process all day. I love crying. It helps me; it helps me feel nothing.


***This is the portion of my story where the reader is introduced to one of the two main characters named Erinn.

The Snows of Kilimanjaro

Hemingway's writing is truly amazing and this is exemplified in this short story. His development of character and personality made the story so incredibly interesting and insightful.

The italicized portions of the story, Harry's flashbacks of his life, his love and his writing, allows readers to better understand his current reasons for acting and thinking in the ways that he does. Also, it somewhat explains why his past as well as his present ways with women is so outlandish.

Hemingway's use of imagery throughout the story helped me, and I'm sure others as well, to picture the setting in which the characters were in. His tone throughout the piece seemed somewhat hostile; as if something was about to happen to Harry at any moment.

I liked the development of the character of Harry very much. It seemed as though his life was full of confusion and most obviously regret. Regret for things that had he had and regret for things that he never got around to doing. The way that Hemingway built up Harry's death was unique. As a reader, I was waiting/expecting for it to happen multiple times because Harry felt it coming so often. His death was interesting way to end the story.