"So I began to tell myself a story, a bed time story." Pg 232
There was so much that I found screwed up with this story I don't know where to begin. The fact that the narrator is comforted at night by this sick story she has made up indicates to me that she has some very serious mental problems. She tries to fight fire with fire I guess. In this case fire is paranoia. When the narrator becomes frightened and paranoid at the thought of an intruder or a collapsing house foundation, she creates a story of greater paranoia to ease her nerves. Then there's the ironic instances within this fairy tale she has made up. The paranoid actions of the parents did kill their son but fairy tales also had a role to play in his tragic death as well. The fairy tale books he read gave him the idea to clime over the dangerous wall to rescue the princess. While trying to recreate this scene he gets caught in the security wire and dies a horrible, gruesome death. Also the company that provided this murder weapon a.k.a the wire gate was called Dragon's Teeth. Dragons, princes, and damsels in distress all make up crucial elements of classic fairy tales. These elements are also what lead to the young boy's death. This leads me to wonder if maybe this is the narrator's sick but clever way of expressing her distain for fairy tales. She does say in the first paragraph that she's never been one for children's stories. Though this tale highlights the dangers of being too protective it also warns against just how dangerous the innocent story line of a fairy tale can be.
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