Jeremy Hare's piece, "Casting Shadows," is about a girl who has died and struggles with her lack of choices even after death. Living, she was a very passive individual, and dead, very little has changed. The conflict arises when she realizes just how much her free will has been violated - she was killed and forced to become a "death god" against her own wishes - and she must fight to make her own decision. In the end, she wanted a normal life, but, failing to regain this, she chooses instead a "normal" death.
The subject matter was interesting and the imagery (especially as it pertained to setting) was strong in this piece. It was easy to see where everything was taking place. The eerie whiteness of everything in "Sanctuary" was conveyed to the reader well. The reader could also be drawn into the story easily due to the unique subject matter. Though death stories are not too uncommon, this particular story is unique to our class, and, therefore, Hare's Audience.
To make the piece stronger, I would advise Hare to move the fire scene in the early part of the story to the very beginning - it would draw the reader in much more than "the girl woke up in the hospital." As a reader, it took me a long time to feel engaged in the story, as well as form a connection to the narrator. Another way to make the story stronger, in my opinion, would be to focus more on the barely mentioned characters (the person Kain was talking to when the narrator found out she was killed, and the girl with cat ears in the living world, for instance) instead of leaving them to the wayside. They needed to interact with the narrator in some way. Otherwise, why mention them?
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