Elements of "A Lonely Coast"
by Justin Brown
Annie
Proulx's short story, "A Lonely Coast," conjures up quite an image
for the state of Wyoming. The Wyoming
in "A Lonely Coast" has a very harsh environment where harsh events
take place day after day. The characters
in "A Lonely Coast" are all quite rough individuals. Proulx does a great job of showcasing the
ugliness of every day life in Wyoming,
from events like a rancher taking a fifteen year old girl's virginity to road
rage that leads to a gun fight with a body count.
The
landscape that Proulx paints in "A Lonely Coast" is just so savage
and ugly that it makes her characters into savage and ugly people. Not one event takes place in the story that
makes Wyoming
seem like it might be a nice place to visit. Proulx leaves a window open to suggest that
every day life in Wyoming is so atrocious it makes you want to kill yourself
with the closing line "it's easier than you think to yield up to the dark
impulse" (207). It is as though
death is the only escape for these people's lives. Proulx writes, "you don't leave until
you have to," suggesting that no matter how miserable someone might be
with their life in Wyoming,
they cannot just pack up their things and leave (190). Nothing in "A Lonely Coast" could
make a person smile.
Work
Cited
Proulx,
Annie. "A Lonely Coast." Close
Range:
Wyoming
Stories. Ed. Annie Proulx. New
York: Scribner, 1999. 189-207.
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