Given Her History and The Virgin of Small Plains

I read the short story, Given Her History by Melissa Vanbeck. Unlike the other short stories I read, this one was more unsettling to myself. The story is about a small little girl named April-May and her family dog Jake. Jake was actually the pet dog to her older brother Billy. Billy, who appears to be disturbed and have a high degree of emotional and psychological issues, burnt his mother, father and brother in a home fire. April-May and Jake are found physically safe, but emotionally scared. After the fire, April-May goes to live with her teacher, Mr. Clark and his wife. It is quite apparent that she and her dog are not wanted by Mrs. Clark. She will leave the room once April-May enters it. She seldom speaks to her. Mr. Clark passes away, so April-May is forced to find yet another place to call home. An older woman, Vivian takes her in. At the end of the story, April-Mays brother, Billy comes back for her. I could not tell if he came back to kill her too, or if he came back to see how she was doing. Vivian is extremely upset for what he did to the family and her rabbits. She asks Billy to leave, but he refuses. Due to his violent and deadly past, Vivian shoots Billy and kills him.
It is amazing to me that a town would turn their backs on a child during a time of disaster and tragedy. April-May loses her family and has to move in with people knowing that they do not want her. She is experiencing enough emotional and psychological challenges, the towns reaction is completely unnecessary. It is understandable, but sad about April-Mays reaction to the death of her brother Billy at the end of the story. Her tears are not for the loss of her brother, but due to the suffering of the rabbits during the fire. It is sad that such a young child would have witnessed the emotional and physical abuse within her own family, endure the family fire, and then witness the death of her older brother Billy. I do not feel any child should have to endure such tragedy in their life, let alone at such a young age.

Of all the short stories, I found t his one to have the worst character development. I found myself with more questions about the characters in the story. For example, it is apparent that there was some physical and emotional abuse in April-Mays family, but why did the mom stay? I have no idea why Billy came to the decision to kill his family. Anyone must be struggling a great deal to make such a horrific decision to kill their own family, but what happened for him to do this. And why did he save his sister from the fire when he had much enjoyment from torturing her? And another question I have is the towns’ response to the fire. I do not know what this family did to have such a lack of support for the daughter April-May. I live in a town that would never turn their back on a family during such a difficult and tragic time.

I enjoyed this short story, despite some of the troubling issues I found in it. I will say that there was less character development than the other ones. I tend to gravitate toward stories that I feel more connected with the characters. I like to know more about them and why they do the things they do or say the things they say. I will say there was more mystery, but this could also be thought of as lack of answered questions. I do not think there was so-called “mystery” in it, but more unanswered questions than the other ones.

I do have to say I was surprised that this short story was written by a woman. This may sound stereotypical, but I feel that more gruesome, violent stories are written by men than woman. I would not have been able to tell the author by character development. I tend to believe that men are more emotionless, which I feel fits this story. Most characters did not express emotions. Mrs. Clark did cry when she found her deceased husband. And April-May did have tears at the end of the story. There was no positive, happy emotion at all in the story. On the contrary, the emotions were sad, subdued and negative.

I am glad the short story ended with the sudden death of Billy. I am a firm believer that people must pay the price for their crime. I do not think it was appropriate for Vivian to do it in front of April-May and to leave her with the scare of this on top of the house fire. I did not like that I was left with so many unanswered questions. The ending was much different from the other stories I have read such as The Hour When the Ship Comes in and A Different Road. Based on these feelings, I do not think I would recommend this short story to anyone. It would be a good story for a class discussion, based on the lack of answers.