Blog No. 2: “Pagan Night”

                In the short story “Pagan Night”, Braverman tells of a young musician couple who live a very Bohemian lifestyle. Van-dwelling, drug addicted and penniless, Dalton and Sunny just happen to have a baby on the side. There are many gaps left in this storyline leaving much room for the reader to fill in. Neither Dalton nor Sunny want this child, leaving it nameless for an obvious yet unspoken reason: both parents don’t see this baby in their future. Dalton mentions in part of the story that some African tribes don’t even name their babies until they survive their first year. It is apparent that he doesn’t plan on having the child with them much longer. He doesn’t even refer to the baby as a “him”, just “it”. Neither parent wants to get attached to their progeny. Though Sunny does think of names for her son, she is always changing them as her emotions and situations shift. Though she's constantly thinking about the baby, her thoughts aren’t in the child’s favor, they are all self-centered. She doesn’t take the baby on walks away from the van to get him out of the unfit environment she has him living in like a good mother would, it’s so Dalton doesn’t get fed up with them. Sunny sees her son as an unfair burden that shouldn’t have been placed on such special shoulders as hers. She compares herself to the extremely rare and exotic snow leopard and how it didn’t seem right that such an amazing creature was put in this marginal environment. The fact of the matter is that she put herself in every situation she has gotten into but she doesn’t want to take responsibility for her actions. Dalton and Sunny both use their baby as a scapegoat, subconsciously blaming him for their problems and thinking that if he is gone, their troubles will be too.

                In regards to reception theory, I know my interpretation of “Pagan Night” is completely biased against Sunny due to my experiences with close friends who are, or were at one time, drug-addicted parents. I know a few people who were able to realize once they knew their kid was on the way, they were now living for something bigger than themselves. On one level or another, responsible choices need to be made once a person becomes a mother or father, whether it’s cleaning up and raising the child like a parent should or taking the appropriate measures to find the baby a safe home. It is absolutely ridiculous to consider dropping a helpless human being into a river or a lion’s cage. I have no sympathy for Sunny whatsoever.