Stolpestad Case

When writing a story does it really matter what point-of-view you write it in? Is the reading experience the same no matter the narrating angle? What can make a man become so emotionally dead that he does not even feel love towards his family or regret after shooting a hurt dog? These questions, and more, will be answered in the text below.

The short story, Stolpestad, is about a police man whose life obviously has become pure triviality: He goes to work, waits for the shift to end, makes an excuse about working late to postpone his arrival at home, gets home and goes to sleep. Then a day, just before his shift ends, he is asked to help a boy with his dog (the dog is a symbol of Stolpestad: it just lies there, has given up and just waits for its life to pass, but no matter what happens (even being shot) the dog stays alive. So it is with Stolpestad too, he is not living his life, but is not ending it either.). At arrival he finds out that nothing can be done to help the dog, because it is really hurt and just waiting to die, and he agrees with the family that the dog has to be put down - by him. He walks around the house, sits down and talks to the dog and then shoots it. Afterwards he drives to the city, calls his wife to tell her that he is late, and then goes to the same bar as every day. His wife knows where he is and calls the bar to tell Stolpestad that someone is asking for him at home, he drives back to his house to meet the father of the boy, whose dog he shot earlier that day, and the boy. Even the news that the dog did not die, after he shot it, does not compel any emotion to surface. But maybe the narrating angle has a say in this matter.

The story is written with a narrator bound to the main character and unable to shift between characters and to see the emotions of Stolpestad, in the story he is always referred to as "you" or "Stolpestad". Using this form of narrator, we, as readers, get the same kind of experience as if we ourselves were watching someone. The main character is observed, and the observer is incapable of letting any emotions be described, which also symbolizes Stolpestad's life, because he seems just to be a spectator to his own life and therefore he feels no kind of emotions. The fact that he is trying to make excuses every day for not going home early seems that he does not feel any affection for his family, and he does not want to spend too much time with them. Also because he always just waits for his shifts to end indicates that he does not feel that there are anything positive about his life as it is. And even though he might feel that his life is boring and stale, he does not try anything to change it, and therefore it is clear that he has become completely dull and passive. He feels that his life is of no use: It seems he lives in a big city (he passes "The coffee shops, the liquor stores, laundromats, police, fire, gas stations" (in plural)), and so he feels insignificant and forgotten among all of the people in the city. He cannot see