A Light At The End (Sunlight analysis)

((Note: PLEASE READ "SUNLIGHT" (two posts down) BEFORE READING THIS ESSAY! Forgive me for the lack of indenting. I should really figure out how to do that on here.))

Upon a dark, stormy day, the rain just won't seem to end, and the river's rising, flash flood warnings appear on local television screens, and though some morbid part of the one who views the screens and streets might feel a strange eagerness for the storm, the rest of this such person feels the weight of it; those days seem to never end. "Sunlight", written by A. ****, a very short story of seven digital "Read" pages on Microsoft Word, tells of an evening of such a day, which happens as only one small piece of a young man's tattered life. Opening with his only solace, a musty, neglected basement, then gradually revealing what brings him there (an accident, war, the death of his mother, the illness of his father, and the perceived abandonment of a significant other) as he treks his way to, and then settles in the main level of his home. A sunrise, a sunset, and later just "sunlight" itself represents the former significant other of this young man, his only "sliver of sunlight" in an abandoned, desolate room. Through this, one perceives contrast between darkness and light in a location, isolation and companionship, as well as hopelessness and hopefulness.

The opening scene of "Sunlight" reveals an undeniable darkness, if not at least a pervasive dreariness. The only light in the room appear as a dying lightbulb on bad wires and a tiny window: "There was something wrong with the wiring, he was sure of it... The light bulb kept on swinging... flickering more... losing light with every shift in motion. And then the room turned black. The young man's eyes adjusted, with the bluish light from the small... window at the opposite side of the room" (1). Preceding this quote, the objects in the room have descriptions such as "discarded materials" (1) and "precariously stacked boxes of the past" (1) that appear like "ghosts in the dimness of the chamber" (1). These abandoned objects seem to be the protagonist's only connection to his barely brighter past. This neglected room of his home, a small one underground, becomes the protagonist's solace from all his other difficulties in life. It becomes the place he can escape to, comforting, distracting, and nostalgic in spite of its darkness. But it can only serve him temporarily, as every session in the lonely basement leads him back into his even lonelier present life.

The life the protagonist, frequently referenced to throughout the piece as a "young man", faces reveals itself as one of particular difficulty and isolation. It is implied that the protagonist often finds himself alone with his dying father and a hired caretaker who comes in every so often: "He watched his dad, he watched himself, and the caretaking woman to whom he barely paid enough, watched them both...He found his father sleeping in his room... Alone" (2), and "The young man knew there wasn't much time for the man... though he may have been old enough to take care of himself, he would be an orphan" (4) reveal this to be such. These passages make it all too clear that the protagonist finds himself very aware of his potential loss, and his previous experience with it, and he expresses these things at a distance, revealing himself to be numb. Which, in turn, shows that the protagonist feels deeply alone and hurt.

However, there is no more clear emotion than when he begins to recall his former sweetheart. A girl with shy, gray-blue eyes (3), and golden hair (3). She opens him up like a key to a lock (3), and he appears to have a similar effect on her (4). These passages also reveal possible causes for his pain and loss: car crashes and war (4). But they also talked about other things--high school (3), clouds (3), flowers (4), ice cream (3), and swingsets (4), to name a few. He compares her first to a "sliver of sunlight" (3) in an abandoned hospital room of a patient who has recently died (3), then to a "sunrise" (4), and later to a "sunset" (5). These comparisons clearly represent the girl at different points in her relationship with the protagonist. The sliver indicates her quiet entrance into his life, the sunrise as inspiration in hope for the future, and, finally, the sunset as the conclusion of their relationship.

As previously stated, the sunrise represents hope for the future, and the sunset represents the end. Following the sunset is night. The post-sunset emotions plunge the protagonist into despair, and then a rationalization of his own death: "And then there was night. Endless night. No stars. Only storms like this one. His soul ached" (5), and he lists off possible methods of suicide (5), shudders at the thought of the compassionate caretaker finding him (5), but once more assures himself of his ability to end his own life (5). Earlier on, the protagonist implies that the circumstances which bring the protagonist and his father to this bleak place occurred three years ago (2), and the protagonist repeatedly mentions his feelings of a sort of oldness. These events, also implied to have killed his mother and may have caused his father's debilitating further injury and terminal illness, combined with the abandonment by his understanding girlfriend, who appears to be healing from her circumstances and moving on in life, has driven him to believe there is no hope for a future or fulfilling life left. All the odds seem stacked against him, and there seem to be no options left, in his mind. However, he finds himself pulled from his suicidal thoughts by a knock on the door (6). He does not expect who he sees--the girl from his memories, represented once more as a "sliver of sunlight" (7) as she enters the house. Only a moment ago, the protagonist had been prepared to end his own life, arguably the darkest thoughts one can possess. And then steps in what once represented brightness and a future for him, for the second time, represented as a "sliver" of sunlight--of a tiny bit of hope revived. This may not represent that he is not continuing to think about suicide, but she does provide him a distraction from such thoughts, and her entrance has the potential to once more grow into a sunrise, pure sunlight; that is, hope for the future.

The strong imagery of a rainy, dreary day, in a home of two desolate people evokes emotions of seemingly endless gloom. Such was not always the life for the protagonist, whose evening reveals the meanings of dark and light in his home, his isolation and former companionship, and his eventual despair and return to potential light. A broken young man teetering at the edge of suicide places his hope in a young woman who once shared in his grief. She once gave him inspiration to believe that his future was not hopeless. She is as bright as the sun to him, in his dark life of turbulent storms. In life, there is darkness, and thunderstorms. But at the end of the storm, there is calm, color, and the sun will always eventually return.