Response to Reasons for Elevators

The introduction of "Reasons for Elevators" by Lindsey Drager supplies the reader with a story with motion first with the up and down. Then it goes to use emblems for umbrellas and the ringing of the elevator. This set up puts the reader in an 3rd person point of view over the elevator. It gives rise to a voyeuristic feeling. A sense of alienation from the normal is presented by having the umbrellas discarded. To have this take place in a hospital brings out ones fear that one would be discarded or disposed of in the trash just like the umbrellas. There is a sense of urgency due to the shuffling of the people from section to section.
The second paragraph explains the death of the child being born in the hospital and the suffering that the mother must have had when she was notified that she was giving birth to a dead child. the author leave a lot to the imagination because she informs the reader that the mother has never told her the story. Perhaps the mother of the child is in a catatonic state suffering for the death of her child and can no longer think about anything besides the loss of her baby. There is a lot of things unsaid in the story such as the reaction of the husband, the cause of death, and the fallout of such an event.
In the rest of the story the author bridges the past with the present. By having the memory of the baby become a deep and heavy monument that drags the mother down. The depression of having to have your joy turned to sorrow and the pressure of knowing that the death of the child would one day be forgotten.
The conclusion wraps the depression and the sorrow that the mother is experiences by uttering the words "Tell about the last time you were a victim." It implies that the mother will never forgive the world for taking her child away. The author uses the finality of the death of the baby as a way to connect the pain of the past and uses that pain to express a moment of utter understanding between the narrator and the mother. It shows that the mother is not ready to move on and that the author has a connection to the mother.