“Material” is a story about a young man’s search to find his inner self. Michael Byers, also the protagonist in the short story, writes a story filled with different accounts of a summer he spent on a fish processor barge in order to relate his struggle to overcome issues that have plagued him as a writer and as person in general. Foremost, Byers worked on the barge to make money for college. A second underlying reason that Byers works on the barge is to find material to ignite his writing. During the time he spends on the barge he grows as a writer, but more importantly as a man. His uncles, which help him find the job for the summer, are men that Byers looks upon with admiration, describing them as “massively, thrilling competent people” (2). He looks to them as models for what a man should be because he has not really had one in his own life. Byers lived with his mother, and he explains the reason he really needs the money is to avoid conflict when his parents meet in August to......
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Approximate Word Count: 1581
Approximate Pages: 7 (260 words per double-spaced page) |