Star Food Ethan Cain Summary

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The fictional short story “Star Food” by Ethan Cain is about a teenage boy named Dade who has difficulties with understanding his parent’s reasonings along with even more problems as a woman begins to influence him unpurposefully. As he is growing up, he has moments with his parents where some things would please the mother or the father. It is revealed that the mother is someone that loves to dream of possibilities and discoveries where his father is disciplinary and is more serious. The summer he turns eighteen he meets a quiet woman who steals from the shop and as more time passes on, the more paranoid he becomes. The reason why Dade let the woman go in “Star Food” is due to his conflicted feelings of intimidation and fear from the woman …show more content…

Dade feels intimidated and becomes “afraid [that] the woman was coming back” as his “heart went dizzy”, believing that “the woman knew something about [him]”(11). Dade beings to get paranoid and fears the woman, depicting her as wise or insightful, over emphasizing things such as her stare or smell. As a result of such he begins to get his own ideals confused which eventually leads to making regretful decisions. When Dade grabs hold of the woman and is taking her to the stockroom, he “felt as if [he] were leading her to the dance floor, [flushing him] with remorse”(16) and guilt. Dade feels wrong and sad because of how the mysterious woman had seemed slender with bones showing on top of how she had to steal food in order to provide for herself, making Dade reluctant and eventually change his course of actions. Although Dade believed he had found what he was truly waiting for, it was actually a product of his delusions from all the stress and pressure that was forced upon him as some moments he feels anxious, disappointed, joy, and surprise from interacting and thinking about the woman. It is due to all this confusion and guilt that Dade becomes influenced and molded from someone full of hope and kindness to someone who can only believe he knows what he is doing is

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