Analytical 2: Short Story Analysis

"To Da-Duh, in Memoriam" was a short story told in first person about a girl who started to get her grandmother interested in the technological advancements that places like New York City were starting to adopt. The grandmother did not like any kind of technology at all, and the narrator subtlely put in the grandmother’s tension when they walked on the streets of the 1930s New York City. Although this doesn’t directly relate to the growth of cities (population wise), it shows that there were still many people who were afraid of walking on the streets full of cars and crowds of people. The grandmother loved her granddaughter (the narrator), but still felt uneasy about setting foot in New York City any more than she did, and the narrator said, “As soon as we left Bridgetown behind though, she relaxed...." This was a very subtle way of implying that not everyone enjoyed any parts of a larger city, and she could be a reason that people could use to move out into the suburbs. The thing about more rural areas, though, is that settlers in the 1800s who developed a lot of these suburbs, including Deerfield, had to destroy acres of prarie, forest, and other places that were once the habitats of wildlife. Da-Duh didn’t really come from a suburb, though, but she didn’t understand why a city like NYC would have such hype to the point where she can make false and negative assumptions about what the people were like and how stupid technology was. The narrator spent a lot of time with her grandmother, and started telling stories about how the light switch was invented, and how people enjoyed the snow. The grandmother seemed to be somewhat-impressed by many of these descriptions, although she never admitted it. Near the end of the story, the narrator describes how tall the Empire State Building was, and the grandmother was in awe just based on her granddaughter’s description. By the time the grandmother would have gotten a photo of the Empire State Building, the grandmother died, from a tragic airplane attack on the island that she lived. The reason why this story was written was because the author wanted to show that while there is a lot of beauty in the cities, many people can still enjoy a more rural life, without the technology and big buildings, and it is important to experience both places.