Response to “The Forest”

            The short story “The Forest,” which is written by Andrea Barrett, is describing the story of Rose Marburg’s sister - Bianca in the third person as the onlooking perspective. The whole story is composed of the conversations between characters, descriptions of behaviors of characters and environments. Among these parts, the conversation between Krzysztof (a Polish biologist) and Bianca is the most important part of this story. They meet at Constance’s party which seems to be full of scientists. In the party, Bianca looks like the shadow of his sister Rose because Rose is too outstanding. She feels uncomfortable about it. Beside, the participants’ conversation including abundant scientific information so that Krzysztof and Bianca feel the party is boring. They drink vodka and talk about the forest, the animals in the forest and their life. Krzysztof tells Bianca many old passed things. And Bianca is reminded of her grandma. Then, they decide to see deer in a park. Unfortunately, Krzysztof gets hurt in muddy marsh. When they go to hospital, Bianca realizes that Krzysztof likes her. At the end of the story, they come back to the party. People seem like misunderstanding something, but they do not explain. Bianca leaves the party and drives Krzysztof to his hotel. 

            Honestly, the story seems like conveying a nonobjective and theoretic argument, but it is too difficult to understand totally. According to the reference, Barrett uses special structure to show the inevitable gap between the young biochemists and elder biochemists. In my opinion, it may be right. Krzysztof calls himself as “the foibles of elderly” for emphasizing he is a senior. At the same time, there is a meaningful ending at the end of the story: “she drove as if this were the point fro which the rest of her life might begin.” Comparing the Bianca’s point with Krzysztof’s, Krzysztof wants to back to the pass because he is old, but Bianca just want to leave and have a new start.