Setting

Slouka’s short story “Crossing” takes place in modern-day America, over just about twenty-four hours. The man’s son, and possibly the man himself, lives in the city of Tacoma, Washington State since that is where the man picks up his son at dawn. Soon the father and his son drive into the wild to go camping.

By crossing the river, they symbolically move from civilization to nature, and nature can sometimes be a dangerous place. Often nature is used in literature to symbolize how the main character goes through a challenging process of personal transformation. (This was traditionally used in fairy tales - just think about the forest in “Little Red Riding Hood” where little Red meets with danger in the symbolical shape of a wolf). The man in “Crossing” is struggling to find his new identity after splitting up with the mother of his son, and his main goal is now to become a great father. To sum up, this means that the man is going through a pe...