18 Critical Introduction

In Gracie Christensen’s essay analyzing “The Dark by Jess Walters, she uses a feminist lens to exemplify how Doug treats the women throughout the story, including his deceased wife in her death. The paper argues that Doug exemplifies patriarchal control by dismissing Ellie’s experiences, emotions, and autonomy. He consistently prioritizes his own needs and perspectives, reducing Ellie to a women who should ten to his emotions and needs at all times. The author highlights how Doug manipulates the narrative to present only negative aspects of Ellie, effectively erasing her individual identity and achievements. Christensen critiques the story’s representation of gender dynamics, demonstrating how patriarchal systems enable men to suppress women’s voices and experiences, rendering them invisible and subordinate to male perspectives.

Kvothe Harris applies the lens of deconstruction on Jess Walter’s short story “The Dark” in his essay titled “Identity in the Dark—Deconstruction in Jess Walter’s Short Fiction”. Using evidence from the story itself as well as from other scholarly sources on deconstruction as a tool for analyzing fiction, Harris describes the way that Walter’s writing codifies the idea of personhood as exemplified by the idea of a stable self. Furthermore, he details the ways in which Water’s writing somewhat purposefully proceeds to dismantle that idea as well as the places in which Walter’s critique fails to execute its message properly. Harris prompts the reader to think about the ways in which a certain voice can sometimes be inadvertently priviliged by the narrative and how an author’s hand can show itself in the writing, even by accident.

In Emily Westerman’s essay analyzing, “The Dark,” by Jess Walters, she uses the new criticism lens to demonstrate how grief is a theme throughout the story. She highlights that the story shows that Doug’s unique journey through grief is found through the structure, tone, contradictions, and italics. There is a past and present structure to the story which shows how one might go through grief. Doug is constantly trying to move forward, but can’t help but have memories come to his mind. There is a humorous tone to the story which demonstrates Doug’s way of coping with the loss. The contradictions about life after death is shown through Doug’s thoughts, which show how one’s mind may try to work through things while grieving. The italics used throughout the piece highlight Doug’s innermost thoughts about his grief. Overall, Westerman provides a deep input on the theme of grief throughout the story.

In Aidan Saiz’s essay looking at Jess Walters’ “The Darks”, he takes a Reader Response approach looking at only the text itself and his interpretation of it. Aidan looks at the text and ties it to aspects he’s experienced in life and presents a dive into the main character’s flawed but understandable personality. Aidan looks at the complexity of a man and his grief and relates it to his own experiences with his own self and how he has seen certain character traits in his father as well. Using his own experiences, he warns about what falling into the dark can do to a person and the importance of making sure we don’t fall too far.

In Kenton Piper-Ruth’s analysis of Jess Walter’s “The Dark”, Piper-Ruth uses the lens of cultural studies to take a dive into the older dating scene portrayed by Jess Walter, showing how the relationships of the characters in “The Dark” are affected by culture and how these relationships in turn have an effect on the culture in which they exist. Piper-Ruth argues that “The Dark” is highly representative of how American culture views dating in old age.