Accident by Dave Eggers Analysis Essay

In order to fully understand that any contact is contact, depending on how the individual feels, I suggest reading “Accident” written by Dave Eggers. He happens to be able to write about uncertain emotions and form a short story that in a way I believe we will all relate too. Somehow in this short story Dave Eggers was able to create an exceptional number of emotions and ways to interpret what exactly the narrator is feeling. Overall, we can interpret this flash fiction story in our own perspective and interpret it as if we were going through these emotions as well. While reading this story you must think to yourself about what exactly you would do if this was you. Is any contact, contact? Or will you never be satisfied? 

Dave Eggers is one of many authors well known for flash fiction or micro fiction as some call it. Flash fiction is primarily known for being very short and no longer than a few hundred words to engage an audience. These stories are known for sticking to one period of time for the whole story but making every word count in order to engage the reader. In this flash fiction Eggers was able to keep the audience engaged through emotion, leaving a few unknowns in the story making the audience to want to keep reading. 

A few of the unknowns in the story include not knowing whether the narrator of the story is male or female, this also leads into letting the reader relate more to the narrator and putting their own emotion and thoughts into the story as to what they would do.” Therefore, in order to encourage the reader to identify themselves with the narratee, their distinctive characteristics should not be given... does not hint at anything that might prevent reader identification – such as their gender or age” (Drag, Wojciech 2018). Another unknown throughout the story is what exactly happened to the narrator? Why is he or she so lonely and feels as if any contact at that moment would be better than nothing? These are the main questions that I would like to eventually find out. Unfortunately, the whole point of a flash fiction is to be short and sweet, leaving the audience to come up with their own theory.  

In the flash fiction “Accident” the disoriented narrator had begun by talking to himself or herself about their emotions, not knowing what to do in order to make themselves no longer alone. The narrator ends up making an irrational decision and decides that any contact would be better than no contact at that point, then they end up driving right through their red light. This then causes a bad accident that includes three other characters in the story that happen to be teenagers. The accident seems to set the narrators mind straight, causing a rush of emotions to begin rushing back and causing more confusion. Such as, what have I done? What will happen? Is everyone okay? And lastly wondering how the teenagers in the other vehicle are going to react. After some thinking and the characters struggling with getting out of their vehicle for a moment, they start to discuss what just happened. Our narrator was nervous and preparing for something to go wrong. Thankfully that is not what happened, one of the teenagers says that he only bought the car that very day. Eventually the story ends up with the narrator finding themselves and understanding more in life.  

Including this knowledge in our understanding of what may or may not have been going through our narrator's mind, we are still able to make the reference that their main emotion is loneliness. Everyone handles emotions differently; we can make a conclusion that our narrator may have been lonely due to a mental illness beforehand and that is why the decision to drive through the red light was decided so easily. “Baring this in mind, it is important to note that a relationship between loneliness and symptoms of psychopathology has been found frequently Loneliness is a frequent complaint among users of mental health services and people receiving psychiatric treatment” (Kall, Anton).