"The Day Mr Prescott Died"

(published in Granata, 1956)

(Sylvia Plath)

My goal is to read at least 31 short stories this month in honor of Short Story month. The first ten I chose were from collections written by women. Now I need to "finish" my study in "gender- biased" reading and continue reading short literature by women (Egads!).

Now on to the first story I've ever read written by my favorite poet:

It was a bright day, a hot day, the day old Mr Prescott died.

She lets it all out in the very first sentence of this story, repeating the word "day" three times--which made me smile. As far as standard form is concerned, it is typically against the "rules" to do this--repetition thing. But all rules are meant to be broke, Sylvia--my rebel!

An unnamed narrator (all other characters are named) talks about the day Mr (no period) Prescott died. She isn't exactly sure how to feel because she doesn't "believe in funerals" and the deceased "was a grumpt old man even as far back" as she remembers.

The dialogue is offset by single quotation marks (double is more standard in the U.S.) and seems almost "southern" to me, even though the action takes place in Boston.

Our narrator remains cold and unaffected until after she accidently drinks from the glass that Mr Prescott was drinking brandy from when he dropped dead. Suddenly she feels sick and then has a meaningful conversation with his son, Ben:

'...you think something is dead and you're free, and then you find it sitting in your own guts laughing at you. Like I don't feel Pop has really died. He's down there somewhere inside of me, looking at what's going on. And grinning away.'

'That can be the good part,' I said, suddenly knowing that it really could. "The part you don't have to run from. You know you take it with you, and then when you go any place, it's not running away. It's just growing up.'

Ben smiled at me.

The simplicity of it all is comforting and not at all what I expected to be reading. Have you read any of her poetry? The passion is jarring--in this form she is softer.

~~J