Argument

The Harsh Reality of Life is Not Always Optimistic
In the story Optimist, written by Richard Ford in the mid 80’s, he tells the reader about how bad choices and unthinkable acts can change someone’s life forever. He tells us how in just one night, all the happiness you’ve expected for you and your family does a 180 degree turn. In essence, marking your life forever, ending in something youwouldn’t want for your family and taking all your optimisms away.
The narrator of this story is Frank, who is the son of the main characters Roy and Dorothy Brinson. At the time of the events Frank is only fifteen years old, but he is telling us the story now at the age of forty-three.
Frank’s father is a worker for a rail road company in Montana and his mother, Dorothy, is a housewife. Dorothywould spend most of her time at home doing chores but sometimes she would go to the movies or to the YWCA to swim. Up to this point everything seems fine but not everything is going well for the family. Frank’s father is at risk of losing his job, and since he is the only provider for the family, this is not very good news. However, Frank still sees his parents as very optimistic people.Dorothy’s friends are Penny and Boyd Mitchell, she knows from the YWCA, where Boyd has an office. These two characters are very important, especially Boyd, because he is the reason why the lives of the Brinson family changes. Roy would get home late from work most of the time, so Dorothy would invite Penny and Boyd to play canasta at her house until late at night. One of these nights, marks an eventwhere Frank and his family’s lives would change forever.
On this night, Dorothy Penny and Boyd have been playing canasta and drinking alcohol, when all of the sudden Roy gets home from work earlier than usual. Dorothy is surprise to see her husband home this early. Frank hears his father’s motorcycle and stands by the kitchen door waiting for his dad. As his father comes inside the house,everyone noticed that something was different with Roy. Frank states, “he looked wild. His eyes were wild” (34).
Then after Dorothy asks him if everything was ok, he starts talking about an incident at work. “I saw a man be killed tonight” (35), Roy said to Dorothy. This man that he is talking about is another worker at the rail road company. This man tries to jump out of a box car but he loseshis balance and as soon as he hit the ground he falls backwards underneath the box car. The car rolls over his foot and he tries to get out by using his hands but they get caught by the other cars, killing and chopping him into pieces. This is the reason for Roy’s wild behavior. He witnesses the guy getting killed and although he tries to help, the truth is, he is not able to do much. He feelsreally guilty about the co-workers accident but things are just starting to get worse.
First, Roy is in danger of losing his job, and then he sees a man die at work and couldn’t save him and now when he gets home Boyd starts blaming him for the man’s death. Boyd was not present when the man died; however, he feels he has the right to blame Roy for the death. His insults towards Roy keep coming,“you’re another featherbedder. You aren’t good to do anything. You can’t even help a dying man. You’re bad for this country, and you won’t last” (35). All of this is too much for Roy to handle and any person in his shoes would get really angry. Roy has enough of the criticism and asked Boyd to stand up, so he can punch him. Roy moves forward and swings straight to Boyd’s chest strongly and Boydfalls to the floor. A few minutes later, Boyd is dead. So now on top of everything that has happened at work, Roy has to deal with the death of another man. Although this man really deserves a punch because of his actions, he did not deserve to die.
Soon after Dorothy calls the police, they come to get Roy and he is free within two hours. Despite him not spending much time in jail, Roy is...