Essay: The Arena – Short Story Analysis

“The Arena” is a short written by Martin Golan in 2008. In the story we meet the father, who is stuck in middle between his past lifetime and his present lifetime. We follow the fathers struggle of letting go of this tough past time, so he can still live a great life.
The story take place in New Jersey in a car and the story is about the father and his son driving around town. The father promised his son to drive in to the Arena so he could meet his lacrosse team’s bus. The narrator of the story is the father and we constantly follow his thoughts. In his thoughts we among other things hear about his earlier wife.
“That was most surprising, that the beauty of a woman could remain after what happened with Willie. Did I mention that my second wife looks like my first?”
It’s very obviously that his he still thinks a lot about his past time and his earlier life with his first marriage. It’s like he doesn’t know in which life he really belongs. He is stuck between to different life’s and he doesn’t know which one to choose. We get a hint from the father in the text about that, but to get the meaning of it you have to dig deeper and read between the lines.
“As I wrench myself out of a dream it takes a moment to remember which life I’m in, this one or the last.”
In the story you generally have to read between the lines. The father does rarely finishing a sentence and you have to interpret some things by your self. For an example with his adopted son, Willie, who he had with his earlier wife but who died. It’s was after Willie’s death that his marriage with his first wife faded out. You never get to hear how he really died, but you get some hints from the text.
“You’re driving down a road and the next second your life explodes, fixing you on that spot forever, to be relived for the rest of your life.”
From that quote from the text you might get the impression that he’s son maybe had died in a car crash, but you don’t really know. The father does several times in the text making you think that he’s going to tell you how he really died, but he’s always either driving the wrong way or his son is talking to him. That’s a simple example on how you need to read between the lines to et the full meaning.
The text has a lot of flashbacks. These flashbacks contain many things from his life with his earlier wife. We go through different stages of his life. We hear about the arenas of his life, about his first marriage, how it faded away, about his first son, how he died and so it goes. Those arenas are important for the story.
“Every time I’ve gone to the Arena I enter a personal arena, a battle from the past. […] Early arenas leave their mark.”
Often in the text we hear about different arenas of his earlier life. It’s important because he new life is in some point based on his earlier life. He talks about the similar things in both lives and keep making contrast between those. It’s like he in his head are still with his old wife but he’s really with his new wife, at least it seams like he wants to be with his old wife.
“I never saw it, but at times I wake beside her and believe I am still with my first wife.”
I quote I specially laid thought on was the quote about Willie was adopted. The father did really care about Willie and I think it has a connection to his relationship with his wife. He says in the text that when they Willie died they lost their boundaries. Willie was the one keeping their relationship going. They had fought to get him and when he was gone they lost their basis in their relationship.
“Willie was on another level.”
“After Willie we had no boundaries”
The father loves Willie even more because he was adopted. He always talks a lot about how big his arena was when Willie came into his life. What about is new son? We don’t even hear his name. the father is stuck in his past.
“When Willie came into my life I thought it was the biggest arena of all.”
The contrast in this text must be the contrast between his old wife and new wife and his old son and new son, in generally just the contrast between his two lives. It’s clear that he is more appreciative with his first life.
“Before the life I have now I had another life, with a different woman, and we also had a child, a boy named Willie. It was a good life.”
He talks a lot about his old life and talks about how good it was. He doesn’t remember his new wife as good as his old wife, and that’s even when he is living with his new wife. He thinks about Willie repetitively while he is driving his new son around, about the accident and about how his life could have been if he still was alive.
The text is written in a very unregularly way. It’s doesn’t contain a lot of conversations between the people in the story, only the conversations the father has with him selves. It’s not often he finishes his own sentences. There are many flashbacks and the story keep circling around the flashback and real time.