'Just Along For The Ride' by Dennis Kurumada (Analysis)

Just Along For The Ride by Dennis Kurumada

Analysis

The first- person narrator from the short story ‚Just along for the ride’ by Dennis Kurumada, published in 1972, is a really desperate man, who does not know what to do in a serious and complicated situation. On one hand, he wants to say the truth and on the other, he does not want to betray his friends.

Fairly early in the short story, there is shown the desperating first- person’s inner- conflict. First, he is a really sincere person, because he wants to go to Ken Benjamin’s mother to tell her the truth about her son’s accident (cf. p.2, l.35ff).

Additionally, he is angry with his friends, who were also involved in the accident, because they do not want to go tot he police and they do not see, that they are guilty (cf. p.2, l.44). Instead, he is presented as a really sensitive person, because he shows all his emotions (cf. p.2, l.45). Later you can see clearly, that the first- person narrator has got a special relationship to the other characters.

At first, it seems as the first- person narrator only goes out with his friends this evening, because he does not have anything else better to do (cf. p.1, l.5). But while they are in the car and drive around with no finish, he is still bored (cf. p.1, l.3f). From the first- person narrator’s friends’s ponit of view, he is a total coward, because he worries t.....[read full text]

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