Death and Duck Season :: Broughton Duck Season Essays

Death and Duck Season In the short story "Duck Season," T. Alan Broughton introduces an everyday family from upstate New York, during the windy, fall season. The protagonist, Gracie, is dying of cancer, while her husband and children live in denial and try their best to carry on with their lives. Broughton uses the repeated structural device of flashback to depict a vivid image from the eyes of a lonely, bed-ridden Gracie. In looking at this story from a structural criticism, it can be broken down into seven parts that reinforce the theme: Cherish the time with a loved one because it can end in an untimely manner. To begin, Gracie is lying in bed one morning and she describes the scenery through her window: "This fall had been unusually mild, but all night the wind had shaken and battered the house, ripping away the warm rainy weather" (135). Sadly, Gracie's only outlet to the outside world is what she sees through her bedroom window and her memories of when she was well. Broughton then uses flashback to introduce Gracie's husband Len. He is a mechanic by trade and stubborn by nature. The author describes the euphoria of duck hunting season as a symbol for the world of denial Len lives in, because he cannot face the fact that Gracie was dying of cancer. "Once she had said to Len, I'm going to die soon, Stop trying to pretend, but he looked at her as if she had betrayed him" (136). Len's state of denial continues to be reinforced until the climax of the story. Â   In the second part of the story, Broughton presents Len and Gracie's three young children: Georgie, Betsey, and Adele. He also presents Father Rivard, who later makes Len address the reality of Gracie's dying. Broughton shows that the children are being taught to move on with their lives before Gracie even passes. They became uncomfortable in their mother's presence. "She noticed how relieved they were to turn and go" (137). Then, Broughton employs irony in his flashback to liken Gracie to her son Georgie, all-alone in the schoolyard. "Now all of them were that way, further and further away from her, and sometimes even the children seemed to look at her from a huge distance" (137).