Critique on " Theodicy"

Sara Angela Rodriguez

A415-002/Chambers

Student Critique/ Theodicy

07 February 2013

I enjoyed reading your writing. I especially liked how your ending looped back to your beginning; the cycle of breakdown, recovery, and breakdown works very well to structure the story and move it along. Another thing I especially liked about your story was the title—Theodicy (or according to Merriam-Webster “the vindication of divine goodness and providence in view of the existence of evil”) because it helped to establish the feeling that the narrator is this theodicy that is concurring over the evil that their friend/partner/lover has. But, it’s also slightly ironic because no matter how much they attempt to conquer over this individual they manage to fail, falling into evil themselves (thanks to the drinking and drug abuse). I liked your work overall, but there are a few places where I was confused. On the second page where the dialogue is first used it is hard to tell who the speaker is (the narrator or their friend). There were also a few instances where the way a phrase was worded was a little awkward (those I have marked on the paper itself). As for the structure: I really like it when you label the flashback and flashforward. I would really like to see more of that. I would have liked it if after your first sentence instead of saying, “Let’s reminisce” you would have labeled the entire story as a flashback and had flashbacks/flashforwards within the larger one. You could even go so far as to label the whole middle section of the story as a memory and worked from there. I hope that my comments can help.