FATHER’S LAST ESCAPE SHORT STORY REVIEW

FATHER’S LAST ESCAPE -SHORT STORY REVIEW  In the context of the liquidation of their business, coupled with the presumed drowning of a servant girl and replacement with another, the father has transformed into crab/ scorpion. The short story, Father’s Last Escape by Bruno Schulz, is intentionally vague, highly fantastical and almost completely dissociative. At points there is more material devoted to elements that seem insignificant. While important aspects of characterization and plot are given a glancing treatment. There is a clear allusion to The Metamorphasis by Franz Kafka. Several times the author applies animalistic, zoomorphic and anthropomorphic qualities to the crab-like animal, characters or inanimate objects, at times interchangeably. I suppose it’s true that this might be a comment on aging, death and dying; as the literary criticism states. However, the story is so short (at less than three pages), utilizing such a high level of stream-of-consciousness, it can easily be interpreted the way any of us transform, reach an epiphany or disappear from each other’s lives--with or without notice.