Skunk Dreams

When I began this essay, I'll admit I had high hopes. It seemed like such a peculiar story when the author, Louise Erdrich, started it off by telling us that she was lying in a football field as a skunk crept its way onto her. I thought to myself if I was in that situation I would be afraid of the skunk spraying me. Since I've never smelled a skunk's stench, I wouldn't know what to expect, and that is what fascinated me during the beginning of this essay.

Unfortunately, I couldn't help but find the story to go down hill from that point on. Louise Erdrich started jumping around so much, I had to re-read the paragraphs just to make sure I didn't lose track of where she was going with this essay. When I realized the problem wasn't me, and more so her sprawled out writing style, I felt reluctant towards reading on.

At one point, I started to get the feel she was a little obsessed with the whole fence ordeal. The barbed wire description fortunately encouraged me into reading on. I think it was because even though her main direction with the essay seemed a bit sloppy, she had a nice talent with description. But that pro became a con much faster than I expected. She started dragging on and on about trees, wildlife, etc. so much I had to roll my eyes. I'm always up for a writer to add in description, but when the description is so detailed it pulls the reader away from the main focus of the story, the whole paper goes down.

I will admit I did like how she was getting at being bored with a place that incarcerated so many animals after visiting one too many times. It reminded me of times when I used to go places for fun, but after spending too much time at those places, they started to loose their spark. When the spark of a "special" place starts to fade, the whole point of going to that place becomes utterly pointless. So I will applaud Miss Erdrich for using tactics that make the reader consider relating to her personal story.

The really interesting part of the essay was when she crossed paths with the wild boar. Naturally thinking, I assumed the boar was going to be the conflict in the story. The part where (at the time I hypothesized) maybe she would have a near-death experience with this boar. I predicted this on the soul reason for her comparing death and dreaming. Since the essay is called "Skunk Dreams" I thought this was going to be the part where she would almost die. Grim, I know, but it was just a theory; which, by the way, I wasn't disappointed to be wrong about. The boar just drifted off, which made it seem less wild than it was described as to being. I think that part was to remind the reader that they are reading about a dream-like experience.

In the end of the essay, Miss Erdrich said that if she could be any animal in the world, it would be a skunk. At first, when she mentioned this, I felt like she was telling us her answer to some quiz she was taking. Yah know, "If you could be any animal in the world, what would you be, and why?" Well she explained her reason: because skunks are fearless, brave, and do not fret over being captured. This, the author believes, is a sign of not fearing death itself. Of course, what I don't think she realizes is that death isn't afraid of the skunk either, because death does not have a sense of smell.