a.The essay has several subjects; the power of auto-suggestion, the mystery of the past, but mainly, fate. Let’s look at these from least important to most important.
- The mystery of the past is mentioned briefly in paragraphs 10 & 13. P10 is mostly about collector and societies that focus on gun relics from the past, Bullets, shell cases, old guns etc. There is a hint of nostalgia here.
- Auto-suggestion, this is where you feel or believe something to be true not base on evidence (not evidentially true), but based on a feeling that was suggested to you by someone or some situation. The author experienced a faint sensation of comfort because he had a hazy expectation. This expectation was a result of hearing of other people’s experiences and maybe including the strange way the bullet cam into his possession.
- Fate, there is a strong element of fate in several places in this essay. P1 & 3 There is the beggar in a wheel chair. He is a young man, neat and ‘not pathetic looking’. Probably, except for being a cripple, quite healthy. He is nimble, that is he can use the wheel chair well, but why is he in a wheel chair. One could argue ‘fate’ maybe he is a war veteran, maybe he had an accident. Both ‘fates’, it's unlikely he has been there all his life, otherwise he would (probably) have some learnt some occupation. We get the feeling that the beggar is not able to do what he had previously been doing. P2. People are ‘afraid’ of beggars, for various irrational reasons. People are afraid the ‘fate’ of the beggar will infect them in some way. We are still fascinated by the ‘fate’ of others.
What is the role of the policeman in P11. The author goes to a specialist shop, where the owner (who has had lots of experience with guns) doesn’t recognize the bullet. But the policeman does, Why? Because the cop works in a violent city and sees gun things everyday. Is it coincidence that the policeman is there at exactly the right time, or is it fate? P13 the dialogue from an old movie where a dying villain puts his death down to fate. This puts the idea of fate strongly into the mind of the author.
b.P2-7 The author spends so much time with the details of the incident with the beggar in order to emphasize the fatalistic nature of the story, and to create a believable situation in which the bullet came to the author. The beggar comes to be a believable, or real, person. The beggar has identity and some mystery. If he had just said “A beggar gave me a bullet,” there would be much less impact, much less interest and much less mystery. And without the mystery the ending would be much weaker. In fact there would be very little story unless some other part was developed.
c.P4, 8, 10, 12 & 15 deal with the meaning of the bullet. In P4 & 15 the bullet could be a servant of fate, arriving unannounced and unexpected. In fact just like a bullet fired from a gun. In P8 O’Mara, thinks about the mystical properties some people give to very ordinary objects, and the psychological aspects of some status symbols. He concludes that these things work, at least partially. In P10 he considers the almost idealized-romantic meaning people associate with bullets by collecting them. This is used to identify the bullet. P12 questions the (possible) significance of the bullet: “Was it symbolic or mere happenstance?” Also, the meaningless argument; “Do guns kill people or do people kill people? Or do bullets kill people?”This may persuade the reader to reflect upon themselves and face the reality that people kill people with weapons, and bullets.
d.P8 O’Mara implies (weakly) the bullet may have some ‘mystical’ properties, being symbolic of fate. The connotations that go with the word bullet could be: fear, death, war, soldiers, control, domination,
dodge the bullet = to only just avoid being hit or affected by something harmful
bite the bullet = make a difficult decision or suffer a difficult situation
bullet-headed = shaven-headed, associated with not much intelligence
give someone the bullet = fire them
bullet train = because of its shape and speed
silver bullet = a magical cure, or to kill a vampire.
We may also consider the possibility that the cripple is crippled as a result of a bullet – if he had been in the army.
e.Details, like all details, are included to bring a piece of writing to life; to make it more real and to let the reader feel a sense of connection with the story. P1 “a clunky bass amid a sprinkle of tinkling triangles”gives an aural interpretation of the sound, we can easily imagine that sound – it means something. Whereas, “it rattled” means very little. Also this ‘clunky bass’ has connotations of something big and heavy in contrast to something light and delicate. Already we are getting the faint feeling of some distant threat.
P2 describes a stereotypical beggar, to emphasize the non-stereotypical “young man in a wheelchair”.
We see similar descriptions throughout the text. P7 “the car behind me barked”. Cars don’t bark, aggressive dogs do – we feel the irritation of the driver behind, typical of urban life. There are other significant descriptions. E.g. see 3a above.
f.P14, “Or words to that effect,” is a casual phrase and usually said to mean. “I don’t really care”. The effect here is to let the reader know that O’Mara doesn’t take too seriously what he had just said. It brings a sense of reality to P13, which is starting to get seriously fatalistic (there is a bullet waiting for every one of us), which could be a little frightening in a violent city like Baltimore. It thus has the general effect of trivializing what went before. There is also a greater impact by putting this sentence is its own paragraph.
g.P16 “It’s getting close to that time.” This could be thought of both literally and figuratively, but the figurative meaning is more important. Literally, just indicates the action. Maybe he looks at his watch and thinks “OK it’s almost time to throw it away”– after having decided on a time. The figurative aspect indicates he wants to thwart (阻撓/阻礙) fate, either his own fate or the fate of an unknown individual whose name is ‘figuratively’ on the bullet. He is eager to confirm that he has control over his own life. But yet he doesn’t throw it way – yet. Maybe fate still has something to say.