I wanted to include a brief analysis of a few ideas I played with in this story, partially to guide my own thoughts as I was writing, but also to allow myself to build my thinking on this project over time. I do hope that, eventually, I can develop the ideas and characters in both the story and the analysis to a satisfactory point; however, I also think there is beauty in leaving some things unwritten and allowing the reader to fill in the blanks to their liking.
As I write this, I am supremely out of practice as a creative writer. One of my greatest struggles as I penned the story itself was the language. I felt that writing from the perspective of an angry teenager of divorced parents wouldn’t be too difficult (I was one, once), but I had difficulty maintaining a plausible vernacular for Margaret. She’s smart and independent, yes, but I do feel her youth must somehow impact her narrative voice.
Margaret is, after all, a seventeen-year-old girl; she interprets most things to dramatic excess, and it’s likely she exaggerates at least some of her parents’ faults. Her contempt for them is clear in her use of one’s first name and the cruel–although likely accurate–nickname she has given the other. She also reduces her parents to the poorest decisions they make, as she fails to recognize their efforts to make an awful situation work. Alex still funds their ex’s rehab, despite being divorced for a significant amount of time. We could assume Alex does this to have a “break” from their children, but it’s also very possible Alex wants the children to have a relationship with the Drunk, despite their obvious shortcomings as a parent.
Enter the gender roles. It’s clear Alex is quite successful as an attorney, but they are also the more distant parent. The Drunk’s more nurturing attitude towards their children is more consistent with a maternal stereotype, while Alex’s commitment to their career and lack of interest in their children is reminiscent of an aging but nonetheless extant male stereotype.
However, if we paint Alex as a powerful woman, her coldness towards her children is not consistent with a maternal figure. Yet, as an attorney “breaking down barriers” at a law firm, there are a litany of reasons she could cling to her job more than her children. It’s entirely possible she doesn’t know how to be close with her kids because her ex did so for her and she was too successful to care. After all, Margaret does make Alex out to be somewhat of a narcissist. The only inconsistency with Alex would be the unusual, matriarchal sense of care she shows her broken family. She provides for both her former spouse and children, seemingly beyond necessary (ex. the Drunk’s rehab). But how differently might this situation be interpreted if Alex were a man? Perhaps a male Alex might feel a patriarchal sense of responsibility for his family, even for his ex, and does this anyway.
This analysis is far from fully developed, but I did want to include it, as it was an exercise that eased writing and thinking about my goals for this story.
The Switch 