Short Fiction Assignment #1: Silent Snow, Secret Snow by Conrad Aiken

First reading this short story, I expected it to be entirely about the first snowfall of the year. Along with the story being about the first snowfall of the year, I expected the presumable things that come along with winter to follow close behind-the family gathering, presents, food, etc. However, I was wrong, and should've know that from the start. As Foster stated in, How To Read Literature Like a Professor, weather isn't always just weather--there is a deeper meaning behind it. This point ties in with the use of snow in Silent Snow, Secret Snow by Conrad Aiken, and creates a bigger meaning with the use of theme.

In this story, Paul, the young boy becomes infatuated with daydreaming and thinking about snow. Everything else is put on hold and the only thing Paul cares about for the time being is snow. He stops caring about reality, homework, and grows distant from his mother and father. The theme in this story can be viewed as a common theme for coming of age stories, a rejection of reality. Snow is pure, innocent, the only truly good thing in his life. The paradise that he escapes to whenever he needs to. Reality is the real world--the filthy, tampered world where nothing is as it seems. The more and more he separates himself from the real world, the more he is happy and content in this dream state or world. That is why Paul rejects reality and becomes submerged into this dream world of only pure snow. Because if all is good and content, pure, so to say, what is there to be bad or go wrong?

Bibliography
Aiken, Conrad. "Silent Snow, Secret Snow." (n.d.): 1-12. Web. 26 Sept. 2014.