Richard Ford's Rock Springs

Richard Ford transforms Earl’s tone from compliant to dissenting by exposing his loneliness, which leads him to leave Edna, to highlight the cause of their evidently dysfunctional relationship through the characterization of Earl in his short story, “Rock Springs.” Edna and Earl have both faced struggles, which could be how they found each other and are still together. Earl’s past involved jail time for some past offenses and most recently some bad checks and it was his goal to leave Montana and head for Florida. It’s obvious in the text that Earl and Edna don’t seem to mind spontaneously packing up and leaving for Florida, it’s like a safe-haven for them. “And when I cam in the house that afternoon, I just asked her if she wanted to go

“The trailer had that feeling that no one else was inside, which was a feeling I knew something about,” (Ford 296). Previously, Earl seemed to need Cheryl, Edna, and their journey to complete him, to feel whole, but when he sees the trailer he realizes something, he’s lonely, these things don’t complete him and something is missing. This is point in the story that his feelings begin to change and Ford begins his characterization by highlighting how Earl really feels. Earl’s passive tone in the beginning of story shifts after this seemingly simple conversation with the Negro woman in the trailer. Ford uses this event to pivot and alter Earl’s tone and further develop the problems that Edna and Earl have with each

In the beginning, Earl would respond to Edna’s argumentative speech using, “ ‘Of course I do… I thought that was an awful thing,” (Ford 293). His voice is accepting and he’s purposefully not clashing with Edna’s arguments to keep her from getting irritable. After Ford exposes his loneliness and Earl sees how different and appealing life in the trailers seem to be he has an epiphany, and his feelings towards Edna take an obvious turn. When Edna would say things like, “You’ve got a right to be mad at me, Earl… but I don’t think you can really blame me,” Earl would respond with an assertive, truthful statement, “ ‘I guess I do blame you,’ I said, and I was angry,” (Ford 303). Earl’s passive tone is repudiated here and Ford replaces it with a self-assured realization of Earl’s feelings for Edna. This transformation focuses on the development and characterization of Earl throughout the story and reveals that his epiphany is the reason behind it. Ford empowers Earl to be confident and assert his feelings to Edna without caring about her response or