Sorry for the Loss

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Evie’s prejudices against the prison build up tension and the reader expects Victor to be a huge, dangerous man. Evie realizes when she meets Victor for the first time that all the thoughts about the prisoners turn out not to be true. Victor is an intellectual, calm man, the short story reaches its turning point: Why did Evie’s expectations not match the reality? Is the common opinion that all prisoners are big bad dangerous men? Next, the reader is presented with a different situation. Evie does not under why Victor does not cry when she tells him that his Nan is dead, but the reader might. Victor’s reaction to death is simply different from Evie’s. The ending of the short story is open. Through the last sentence, in which a knife is used as a metaphor for Victor, it is up to the reader to decipher whether the experiences’ Evie has been through had changed her, but the last sentence indicates that she has not: “How a thing so hard and sharp, designed to cut, slice and stab, could be named after something so delicate and easy to kill.”(l.187-189). Evie does not understand the complexity of people because she does not understand that such a beautiful sweet boy can be a cold blooded killer.

A lot of times, the title of a short story have multiple meanings. Sorry for the Loss could be interpreted as Evie apologizing for Victor’s loss, because of how he lost his grandmother. If one takes a starting point in the idea that Evie is undergoing a development throughout the story, it can be interpreted as the loss of her naïve perspective on life. It could also be interpreted as the reader’s view on prison life because it is to believe that all prisoners are evil, but this text leads the reader to believe that most inmates are actually good people.

The conflict of prejudices and reality is highlighted by the use of contrasts. One of the prison guards has a skin disease and is a large man; while Victor is a small, smart and beautiful boy. Evie’s fear of Victor being two-faced is actually wrong because it is actually the prison guard that is two-faced. “He switches from officious officer to avuncular guardian.”(l.66). There is also a contrast between the chaotic and calm prison life. The most obvious and maybe most important contrast is church and prison. “God says to love the sinner, hate the sin.” (l.133) by saying this Evie tries to lecture Victor, when Victor tells Evie about his neighbor killing pigeons. This as serves as a paradox, that makes the readers think Victor is the one with good moral - not Evie, who is hiding behind God’s words. Evie becomes jealous when Victor asks to speak with Imam and not her, which is a sin. Evie even does her job poorly when she asks Victor to pray for his own Nan. “She feels she has failed because it isn’t the right thing to say to him at this moment.”(.110). Victor instantly reacts by giving her a “disdainful look” (l.112).

In fact, Evie has a lot of prejudices’ against prisoners and this comes as a surprise. All inmates are not brutal, dangerous men. Some of these people are actually intelligent and have the same moral standards as Victor. Therefore, should you put all of your prejudices away before you judge, not just prisoners, but also everyone else. The moral of the short story is, that you should never judge a book by its cover. Everyone is a complex individual. Even church ministers have flaws, and even some of the worst criminals are not pure evil[f].

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