By: Nicholas Fursey
The literary fiction short story, “Say Yes,” by Tobias Wolff, was published on December 13. I think that the intended audience is everyone, no matter what their race or ethnic background is. Wolff wants to teach anyone reading the text that we as humans need to be more sensitive to people of different races and backgrounds than us. The short story begins with dialogue between a husband and wife as they wash the dishes in their kitchen. The husband first brought up how he thought it was a bad idea for black people to marry white people. His wife did not agree with him. He felt that because white and black people grew up with different cultures and languages, they should not be married, and claimed that he was not a racist. As his wife continued to ask him questions on the subject, he got angry and threw his silverware in the sink. His wife proceeded to cut herself, and he went to her aid to help stop the bleeding, hoping she’d drop the subject, but she instead asked him if he would marry her if she were black, to which he answered no. Towards the end, he felt bad and apologized, saying he would do anything to make it up to her, and that night, his wife did not sleep with him. This text is organized in lines of dialogue and paragraphs are sometimes separated in one to two lines. The text foregrounds the perspective of the husband and obscures the perspective of the wife. One formal device that the text employs is repetition. In the first two pages, the wife repeats what the husband says multiple times when she says “different”, “not the same like us,” “statistics”, and “like I know you,” which is part of the reason he gets angry. The text also uses great imagery when describing the injury to the wife’s hand as well as the two dogs entering the trash when the husband goes to walk outside. Finally, rhetorical questions are also used frequently throughout the text like when the husband says, “How can you understand someone who comes from a completely different background.” Two terms that are essential in the text are crass, which is defined as lacking sensitivity, and indifference, which is lacking sympathy. The husband exhibits both throughout the story. This text generated numerous impressions for me. It reminded me how hurtful it can be to just speak without any sort of sensitivity towards one race or culture as well as the fact that one should never use race as a reason to not marry or be friends with another person. We should be open to all cultures and try to learn about them instead of marginalizing people and acting like the differences in culture prevent people from coming together. It’s that mindset that prevents equality and togetherness. Aspects of this text are very similar to “Desiree’s Baby” because in that scenario the husband left because their kid had a darker complexion.