MLA Sample Paper

Jeanette dreams it. This passage is, as in the beginning,
almost devoid of character attitude: "That night, she has a
nightmare about the trampoline. In her dream, she is jumping on
soft moss, and then it turns to a springy pile of dead bodies"
(670). Once again we get a camera eye view of the dream as it
occurs. By choosing to use this removed point of view and
narrative style, Mason sets to reader up to be confused as to
the meaning of the ending. Unfortunately, this lack of clear
meaning and the introduction of an abrupt dream sequence leaves
the reader too confused to make much sense of the ending. This
is the main reason the story does not achieve resolution, and
the work itself fails to close properly.
When the dream sequence from Cheever's "The Death Of
Justina" is contrasted with that found in "Big Bertha Stories"
we can see where the present tense fails to illicit the proper
response. Mason uses the present tense for a sense of immediacy
and this is the main reason this dream sequence does not work
and creates a frustration in the reader. Cheever's story is
told in past tense, which allows us to get a grasp on the
unreliability of this particular narrator. The absurdity which
precedes the dream sequence properly sets up the dream sequence
and the use of the unreliable narrator allows the reader to
believe the weird nature of his dream. This absurdity is
underscored, as are many similar images and lines, by the fact