Week Five - "Butter Cow"

As I was reading “Butter Cow”, I couldn’t help but wonder about the connection between the “I” and the “he”. Is the “I” female and the two are on a date or are they relatives or friends?  Whatever the case maybe, the “I” seems extremely bored with the “he”. Namely, this is seen when the narrator states, “I am thinking, he is thinking…” The repetition of this line throughout the story demonstrates a strong familiarity between the narrator and the “he”, or at least the “I” believes she knows him well enough to predict almost every thought. The first paragraph describes the road intersections at right angles, the soybeans, and cattle. The narrator describes the drive as “mindless”, but this could also apply to the “he”. From what the narrator reveals, the “he” has a great breadth of agriculture knowledge and is seemingly fascinated by it. However, perhaps the narrator is not actually interested in agriculture and feels the whole fair experience to be banal.

            The narrator’s disinterest in the fair and arguably in the “he” as well is demonstrated when the narrator describes the scene. For the narrator contends, “And at the fair people there walk and eat, lap up against each other, wave the paper napkins stained with four kinds of grease across their moony faces…” As I read this, the description made me wonder who actually are the animals. And perhaps, that is the narrator’s point.