Skip to main content

How does Tom's life change as a result of his ordeal on the ledge?

"In the Contents of the Dead Man's Pockets" Tom Benecke has a revelation about the direction of his life and his misguided use of time.


Early in the story, Tom is focused on advancing his career at the expense of his relationship with his wife and his enjoyment of leisure activities. He spent most of his non-working hours doing research on an idea for making the grocery industry more efficient. Instead of balancing his work life with his home life, he put his relationship with his wife on hold, promising her things would be better when his idea came to fruition. His life was out of balance.


After his ordeal on the ledge, which represented a near death experience, Tom realized his transgression. As he hung on the ledge, he realized how insignificant his life was, and how important his wife was to him. Once off the ledge, he rushed off to be with his wife as she enjoyed a movie. This is symbolic of his new appreciation for life and relationships.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Is there a word/phrase for "unperformant"?

As a software engineer, I need to sometimes describe a piece of code as something that lacks performance or was not written with performance in mind. Example: This kind of coding style leads to unmaintainable and unperformant code. Based on my Google searches, this isn't a real word. What is the correct way to describe this? EDIT My usage of "performance" here is in regard to speed and efficiency. For example, the better the performance of code the faster the application runs. My question and example target the negative definition, which is in reference to preventing inefficient coding practices. Answer This kind of coding style leads to unmaintainable and unperformant code. In my opinion, reads more easily as: This coding style leads to unmaintainable and poorly performing code. The key to well-written documentation and reports lies in ease of understanding. Adding poorly understood words such as performant decreases that ease. In addressing the use of such a poorly ...
Post a Comment
Read more

Is 'efficate' a word in English?

I routinely hear the word "efficate" being used. For example, "The most powerful way to efficate a change in the system is to participate." I do not find entries for this word in common English dictionaries, but I do not have an unabridged dictionary. I have checked the OED (I'm not sure if it is considered unabridged), and it has no entry for "efficate". It does have an entry for "efficiate", which is used in the same way. Wordnik has an entry for "efficate" with over 1800 hits, thus providing some evidence for the frequency of use. I personally like the word and find the meaning very clear and obvious when others use it. If it's not currently an "officially documented" word, perhaps its continued use will result in it being better documented.
Post a Comment
Read more