Sydnie Sivongxay
ENG 2000
Christy Williams
23 February 2013

"By and By" by Amy Bloom "By and By" by Amy Bloom is told through a first-person narrative from the perspective of the deceased protagonist's roommate. Though the narrator shifts in and out of past and present tense, the story is simple. Anne (the protagonist) went on a camping trip with her boyfriend Teddy, and Eugene Trask (the antagonist) suddenly appeared to murder Teddy, then he kidnapped Anne, resulting in her missing for four days. In the end, Eugene tried to rape her near Lake Pleasant, and when she tried to defend herself, it gave Eugene a reason to turn and kill her instead. Her body was found near an old mine near Speculator by two kids searching for …show more content…

She mirrored her mother in personality, for she was her "mother's daughter, (Bloom 495)" and it was obvious that both of them loved to entertain and have parties. For Anne's tenth birthday, it was Hawaiian-themed, complete with a hotdog luau and a pin-the-lei-on-the-donkey game. There was also an apartment party hosted by Anne and the narrator and it was a wonderful affair that had wine (in paper cups that they pretended to be wine glasses), golden spray-painted furniture (Anne's idea), candles, and dimmed lights. This brought up an interesting detail that I noticed about Anne, only Anne, when the narrator tells the story. Anne seemed to be connected to colors, certain colors that represented her personality. In fact, there were only two main colors that the narrator connected her with: gold and white. The first mention of gold was on page 495 when the narrator tells the readers about the party in their apartment and the furniture that was spray-painted GOLD. I did not think much of it then. However, during Eugene's confession to the police about Anne's death, when her body was found at an old mine near Speculator, which was where two kids were looking for garnets, GOLD, and arrowheads (Bloom 498). And the last section where gold appears is in the last paragraph where the narrator speaks about the "dead" things in her life and she mentions Anne's "wet GOLD hair" (Bloom 499). I do not know the significance of gold itself, but I know