Mikko Harvey’s “Cannonball”

Story Title: Cannonball
Author: Mikko Harvey
Magazine: Juked
http://www.juked.com/2012/08/cannonball.asp
Blogger: R. Romero

While reading this fictional story I did not quite understand where it was going. The title is “Cannonball” and throughout the story clearly states that the character is talking about being shot out of a cannon; however, I was not sure what the point of this story was. I reread some lines in this story and I tried to see if there were any references that I may have not picked up on and this metaphor: “how the cannon stood for human resilience,
and how I stood for all humans”, popped out the most to me because it clearly states that this character was an idol of what all humans go through. To figure out this struggle I looked further and saw this line: “I hear the air is like a warm blanket when you’re in it. People are so afraid of falling that they don’t enjoy flying, but the truth is, they’re the same”. This line made me think of how people perceive things in a negative manner and that all situations have a good and bad, it’s just the interpretation that makes the difference. Therefore, the downfall of humanity is how people think. This character has been thinking about this cannon shot as a “doom” or an unhappy ending but really he can think of this as a way to help humanity or to show how people can really have a positive outcome in situations. After trying to analyze the meaning of this fictional story, I see that the character is facing a lot of decisions that help the fellow society around him.

In my opinion this would not be my favorite story to read because it was quite confusing. I was not sure what the other was trying to get at and the story itself did not really interest me.

Published by

alchemistreview

The literary journal of the University of Illinois at Springfield.

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