Tyler Moyer's question about "The Test" in Running after antelope

Tyler Moyer’s question

How does Carrier use irony to show that he himself may harbor some mental instabilities?

      Carrier uses irony to show that the narrator may have some mental instability like the people he seeks out to interview.  He takes this interviewing job right after a dark time in his life.  He wanted to stomp his old bosses throat so he quit that job and on top of that his wife and kids left him. “I answered the questions and scored myself appropriately, and, at some point, I realized I wasn’t doing so well… The client is thirty-six years old and lives alone since his wife left him..”(Carrier 43-44).  After his wife left and took the kids he spontaneously decided to gut the house and live like a primitive.  He is an absurd character, which makes it ironic that he is administering such a test when he himself does not score well on it.

Running after antelope- The Test- by Scott Carrier

1.     How does Carrier use the grotesque?

2.     What is the significance of nobody being home or even a lack of a house on page 40?

3.     What is the significance of the details or lack of details of the narrator?

4.     What does the simile on page 41 mean? “A person’s soul should be like an ocean, but a schizophrenic’s soul is like a pool of rain in a parking lot.”

5.     What does the narrator mean by, “He says there’s a darkness that separates him from other people, a heavy darkness, like looking at a person from the bottom of a well” (Carrier 44)? What is the darkness?

6.     Briefly explain the narrator’s life.  Why does he have this job?

7.     What is the slice of pizza on pages 42-43?

8.     Why make the scale 1-7 and not 1-5 or 1-10?

9.     Looking at the narrator, is he a prime choice for interviewing schizophrenics? Why or why not?

10.  Did you like this story? Use literary devices to explain why or why not.

Mr. Moon

Kayla and I leave for dinner.  The moon smiled at me as I smiled at him.  He was full but my stomach was not.  We come out from dinner and see the moon again. This time the moon and I are both full as we smile at each other; full but not warm.  Mr. Moon looks cold with his fare complexion yet inviting with his crater smile. The cousin and I are chilly so we decide to make cocoa and sit by the fire as we gaze at the inviting moon. The fire warms my face as it dances from the pit.  The serene serenade of the waterfall in the background is soothing but is quickly interrupted by the ouw ouw ooouww of dogs and the wee ooh wee ooh of the ambulance rushing down the street. The world is chaotic but Mr. Moon stays still in the sky as he gazes upon us. They say that smoke follows beauty, well right now the fire is blowing towards the moon and I would have to agree. 

A Winter Walk

On that winter night, the car contained Mrs. Sharp, a single mother, and her five children. Her eldest son was driving, with her in the passenger seat reading aloud the stories she had written for them. How they adored her and her stories.  Her son was so caught up in the adventure story being recited by his mother that he didn’t notice the bridge ahead was not only icy but not a through bridge.  The breaks were no use and they slid off into the icy river below.  They were able to escape out of the car and river but they could not all escape death that cold night. The only survivor was Mrs. Sharp.  During this night she saw a divine event.  The souls of her children floated up from their bodies, just as the snowflakes floated down, and into the nearest open vessels. Due to the winter season, the trees’ souls vacated their bodies and the children allowed the skeletons left behind from the trees to envelop their souls.  Mrs. Sharp limped over to a near-by house to plead for shelter only to realize the house was just as vacant as the trees. That is where she lived a long life close to her children. And each year on the anniversary of the crash she would go out with a basket full of new stories to read to her children and they would be able to release themselves from their wooden enclosures for this one night and glide towards their loving mother. Even in her later years she made the winter walk with the cold biting at her from the inside out in order to read to her sweet children. She eventually died on the 50^th anniversary of the crash.

Song=Poem

Plea From a Cat Named Virtue- The Weakerthans

Why don't you ever want to play?
I'm tired of this piece of string.
You sleep as much as I do now, and you
don't eat much of anything.

I don't know who you're talking to
I made a search through every room,
but all I found was dust that moved
in shadows of the afternoon.

And listen,
about those bitter songs you sing?
They're not helping anything.
They won't make you strong.

So, we should open up the house.
Invite the tabby two doors down.
You could ask your sister, if
she doesn't bring her Basset Hound.
Ask of things you shouldn't miss:
tape-hiss and the Modern Man,
The Cold War and Card Catalogues,
to come and join us if they can,

for girly drinks and parlor games.
We'll pass around the easy lie
of absolutely no regrets,
and later maybe you could try
to let your losses dangle off
the sharp edge of a century,
and talk about the weather, or
how the weather used to be.

And I'll cater
with all the birds that I can kill.
Let their tiny feathers fill
disappointment.

Lie down;
lick the sorrow from your skin.
Scratch the terror and begin
to believe you're strong.

All you ever want to do is drink and watch TV,
and frankly that thing doesn't really interest me.
I swear I'm going to bite you hard and taste your tinny blood
if you don't stop the self-defeating lies you've been repeating
since the day you brought me home.
I know you're strong.



I enjoy this song and how it seems to be from the point of view of a cat. I see this song as an entertaining poem due to the point of view, but also a sad poem due to the depression that the cat wants his owner to get out of. The poem is from the persona of a cat, therefore, it contains personification. The cat is telling his owner to be strong and be more social. In order to say this the cat tells his owner to do things as a cat would "lick the sorrow from your skin. Scratch the terror and begin to believe you're strong." I liked that advice from a cat. There is also rhyming. And a simile "you sleep as much as I do now". The owner sleeps as much as the cat does now due to their depression. There is even visual imagery with the dust in shadows. 

Poems for Anthology

Alone - Maya Angelou

I chose this poem because I believe what she is saying. I do think that nobody can make it in this world alone.

Jabberwocky - Lewis Carroll

I chose this poem because at first glance it does not make sense but when you use your knowledge of english comprehension it is understandable. It is a parodying the absolute of language and it is a parody of a heroic quest. The words used to describe the Jabberwocky undercut it. The poem has neologisms that I quite enjoy. One neologism is "galumphing",which is a mixture between galloping and triumphant.

Metaphor and When I have been Berenger..

1. Metaphor: Loneliness is a house of cats.

2. I have been Berenger when people started dancing as if it were "cool" to grind on each other.