Structure

The short story “Child of God” by Genevieve Abravanel has a chronological plot structure. The unnamed narrator recounts her struggle to figure out how to confess her betrayal of her friend, which caused her to drive home drunk and run over a young Amish boy. 

The story begins in medias res and the sudden confession “I was drunk” helps to capture the readers’ attention and invite them to keep reading:

I was drunk. I mean, not usually. Not on a weekday. But that night, Bill had been out with Petra and then he’d texted me. He wanted to hook up. He and Petra weren’t married, not for another month, but she was my friend and she didn’t know and if I told her about Bill, I’d have to say I was the other woman.

The beginning reveals the narrator’s distressed state and the problem that she is facing.

When the narrator is driving down winding roads, she mentions the roads are “like a rollercoaster and cars just come out of nowhere, their beams sweeping like sudden ghosts”. The mention of unexpected obstacles suggests that it is dangerous for the narrator to be driving drunk, especially on such a road. This can be considered to foreshadow the accident she later causes. Moreover, the mention of ghosts...

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