Firstborn (Masterplots II: Short Story Series, Revised Edition)
At a glance:
- Author: Larry Woiwode
- First Published: 1982
- Type of Plot: Domestic realism
- Time of Work: The early to mid-1960's
- Setting: New York City
- Principal Characters: Charles, Katherine, Nathaniel, Harner
- Genres: Short fiction
- Subjects: 1960’s, New York, North America or North Americans, Northeast, U.S., United States or Americans, Love or romance, New York City, Marriage, Betrayal, Emotions, Violence, Death or dying, Childbirth
- Locales: New York, NY
The Story
“Firstborn” opens as Charles, the protagonist, is reading from Leo Tolstoy's War and Peace (1886) to his wife, Katherine, who is in labor. She has fallen asleep, but he continues to read. He reads the part in which Pierre, realizing his feelings for Natasha, goes out under the Moscow skies and sees the comet of 1812, “a comet that is supposed to portend all sorts of disasters but for him speaks ’his own softened and uplifted soul, now blossoming into a new life.’” This quotation from War and Peace foreshadows the course of the story.
...[The entire page is 1469 words long]
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