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Historical Poetry Essay

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Literature 115-003 April 22, 2010 Donna Craine The Hit Man’s Contradiction T. Coraghessan Boyle is a unique modern author whose work is a mixture of humor and social exploration. Boyle seems to have a very morbid sense of humor; most of what he writes pushes the envelope and challenges the meaning of what humor is. T. C. Boyle was born on December 2, 1948. He grew up in a small town in Iowa and first had dreams of being a musician. To this day Boyle still performs in a garage band and is very passionate about music. Boyle quickly realized in college that he could not make a living from music and drifted through classes until liberal arts became his passion. Boyle was successful in schooling from that point on, “He received a Ph.D. …show more content…

“He responds to the Hit Man’s knock, expresses surprise at the Hit Man’s appearance. The Hit Man takes Cynthia by the elbow, presses a twenty into her father’s palm, and disappears into the night.” This is a very unique first date story even for the culture of the 80’s which seemed to be more sexually open than ever before. On an average first date the male usually tries to impress the father and gets a lecture about what time he should safely bring the daughter home. But the Hit Man is different and Boyle creates these differences by contrasting the Hit Man to the social norms of the eighties. The next major event of the story I find conflicting with the history of T. C. Boyle is when the narrator skims over the death of the Hit Man’s parents. The narrator only gives this event in the Hit Man’s life five lines of the story. When the Hit Man’s mother is in the, “Hospital dying of cancer or heart disease,” or something the Hit Man doesn’t even care; he is out “shooting pool, lifting weights and drinking milk from the carton.” Briefly skimming over these events makes you believe that Boyle didn’t have a good relationship with his parents. When in fact that’s quite the opposite, Boyle has always been a family man and at one point of his life he was even employed at the same school where his mom was a secretary and his father was a janitor. (Cite this information) This is further proof that Boyle uses contradictions to the normality of his life to create a dark

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