Fifteen Minutes in the Life...

A detailed Summary of Fifteen Minutes in the Life...

Many authors use a central theme or main idea to unify their works. Sometimes these themes incorporate forms of imagery, such as tactile imagery or visual imagery, to help support their theme, and make this main idea more apparent to the reader. Carol Shields, in her short story "Fifteen Minutes in the Life of Larry Weller", uses this technique to its fullest, as she describes to the reader the lifestyle of her character Larry Weller. In this short story, Shields teaches us that life just happens, we can't plan our futures, and things happen usually by "mistake".

One gets a taste of this theme in the first line of the opening paragraph, "By mistake Larry Weller took someone else's Harris tweed jacket instead of his own..." (Shields 587). As Larry puts on the jacket and realizes it is someone else's, he decides to keep the jacket for a while, and see what it would be like to live the lifestyle of someone other then himself. Shield's also goes on to describe the ordinary, almost drab, routine of Larry Weller's life. She describes his always-white socks, as a way of telling the reader the main character is not one for change. In fact, the reader begins to understand Larry as the type of person who does n

ot adjust to change, and plans every aspect of his lifestyle.

Larry's mother sat right down in the breakfast nook and read it

Sheilds is trying to convey to the reader is life cannot, and will not be planned. Things happen often by mistake, and there is nothing we can do to stop or avoid what is destined to be. We only have so much control over our own lives, and to compensate for that we develop a routine. Weather the routine is never buying colored socks, or always ordering the same drink, we feel the need for control in our lives some how. Shield's says it best when she explains:

When it turns, you turn too (Shields 592)

Even Larry's relationship with his girlfriend happened on accident as Shield's explains, "It was sort of a mistake the way they got together" (Shields 592). And his girlfriend also has a strong influence on how Larry lives his life:

As the story moves forward, Larry becomes comfortable in someone else's jacket, in someone else's life. We learn that many of the things that happened in Larry's life happened by mistake. His career choice came along as a mistake due to the college sending his mother information about the wrong program:

It was an accident how

Some common words found in the essay are:
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Approximate Word count = 815
Approximate Pages = 3 (250 words per page double spaced)

Category: English

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Fifteen Minutes in the Life...

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