Response to Sister by Tobias Wolff

The overall tone of the piece is what most sticks with a reader. Dark, sombre, restless and musing are all seen when the words of the story combine together. Yet, there is a thread of hope woven into the blackness. Some of the colors of the story are grey, even approaching white. These colors are not so much physical objects, but a general color that comes to mind when reading certain passages.

Multiple dramatic techniques are used throughout. The use of the dog barking from behind the apartment door at the beginning is contrasted with the whimpering, sometimes quite dog locked up in a car while the owner is in a bar. The middle of the story is concerned with the encounter of two mysterious men who seem all to ready to give out false names. The main character Marty recognizes one of them as Jack, but the man calls himself Bill, while calling the other man Jack. Oddly enough, Marty also changes her name, but continues to use the qualifier of the tan man for the new Jack and the old name Jack for the new Bill. 

This switching of identity is a puzzling theme to follow. Who are these people? As a reader, can we even know them if they don't know themselves? The use of toy objects constantly harassing the talking party is amusing and keeps the action up. 

Furthermore, the woman that was first with the men, disappears and Marty fills her place, suggesting that maybe the women was never there, but Marty was projecting her existence towards the men all the way from her apartment. One gets the feeling that perhaps Marty is a ghost who thinks she is still living. This whole story is extremely cryptic as to authorial intention.";"Reponse to Sister by Tobias Wolff.
The overall tone of the piece is what most sticks with a reader. Dark, sombre, restless and musing are all seen when the words of the story combine together. Yet, there is a thread of hope woven into the blackness. Some of the colors of the story are grey, even approaching white. These colors are not so much physical objects, but a general color that comes to mind when reading certain passages.