Whale Talk

In Whale Talk, Chris Crutcher attempted to capture the teen spirit. By doing this, he perfectly described the anger, hormones, cursing, hazing, racial tension, fear, and all around emotions of the high school age. Yet he overlooked one of the most important components of “coming of age”: The normality our lives. All that was highlighted in this story were the quarrels, races, debate, etc… of T.J’s life. Crutcher failed to grasp, in this …

…out. The gun shots and scenery were explained beautifully, but the event happened in the blink of an eye. Before we, the audience, knew what was going on, the event had ended. If he had slowed down the action for a moment, the climax would have been more dramatic, and I could have felt more compassion for T.J and his dying father. Yet, as it went, the scene ended before I could feel emotion.