A story about the body

Reading “A Story about the Body,” by Robert Hass, was very intriguing. By the title alone, I was already drawn in to the story. I read every word as if I was watching it play out. I slowly read the story as if I was the narrator. It was very effortless for me to understand the story it self. The story was simply written, making it easy to comprehend.  The author spoke as in he was from the outside looking in, about a girl he was infatuated by. The narrator even spoke of love between the young composer and the artist. Robert Hass said, “She was Japanese, a painter, almost sixty, and he thought he was in love with her.” He specifically described the way she moved and worked on her art. He said, so descriptively, ”He loved her work, and her work was like the way she moved her body, used her hands, looked at him directly when she made amused and considered answers to his questions.” I thought the story was very simple, yet it had a very deep meaning. However, the story somehow struck me as odd. The way the author talked about this deep connection the young boy had with the Japanese woman was very clear. The author began the story making it seem to readers that the boy was simply observing the woman from afar. Then further into the story you realize that the young man had already shown her that he was interested in her. Before you know it, the woman suddenly reveals something that was wrong with her body physically, as if she was warning the young man, not even really giving him much of a chance to show her whether or not it affects him. It was almost as if the woman knew what the young man was going to say. It was also deeply surprising to me that the young man was so quick to shut her down. The young man simply replies to her revealing confession, “I’m sorry. I don’t think I could.” Reading this story made me realize how shallow some men can be. How much something so simple that is apart of the female body, can define a person. It made me angry to see how a woman that is so confident and radiant can turn so quickly in the man’s eyes because of something she’s missing physically. Forever this woman will have to live with the fact that she had apart of her body taken away. Apart of what made her a woman was taken from her so she could live and this could be enough for someone to never consider being with her.