Analysis Of Boys By Rick Moody

1444 Words3 Pages

“Boys” by Rick Moody summarizes the life journey of two stereotypical boys and how they gain power from the experiences they face. The boys face both positive experiences and tragedies that impacts their amount of power. In the short story, the author is conveying the idea that as the boys mature they obtain more power. He shows this through the literary devices conflict, tone, and repetition. In “Boys,” Rick Moody shines light on the conflicts the boys face. The boys weren’t always prepared for the conflicts they faced nonetheless, they always figured out how to handle them. For instance, “Boys enter the house, kiss their mother, she explains the seriousness of their sister’s difficulty, her diagnosis” (Moody 242). The boys come into the …show more content…

Every time the boys enter the house, they’re older. The purpose of this phrase in the short story is to move time forward. Moody is also emphasizing the maturation of the boys. When the phrase is repeated the boys are experiencing changes in power in both positive and negative ways. When the boys entered the house they either walked in powerless and feeling bad about themselves; or they walked in feeling confident and empowered. An instance in which they felt sad and powerless is, “The boys are ugly, they are failures, they will ever be loved, they enter the house”(242). This is how the boys feel about themselves not how the narrator feels about them. Moody repeating the term “boys” to refer to the two main characters as opposed to young men comes to show how Moody believes they lack maturity until the end of the story. Aware that they were their father’s only hope the “Boys enter the house carrying their father, slumped” (245). The boys immediately rushed over to assist their father once they realized something was wrong. The repetition has finally advanced to where the boys are finally men. This power increase made it significantly easier to cope with their father’s death. Without the repetition, it would have been significantly more difficult to follow the timing of the story. Additionally, Moody used repetition to progress from the beginning of the story where the boys were inexperienced to the end where he idolized the boys for trying to help their

Open Document