Norman and the Killer

The “killer” in the story is Norman, and the person he liquidates is himself, and as such, “any potential communion with others.”<ref>Creighton, 1979 p. 33-34</ref>

The “killer” in the story is Norman, and the person he liquidates is himself, and as such, “any potential communion with others.”<ref>Creighton, 1979 p. 33-34</ref>

Literary critic Greg Johnson regards the stories in the collection Upon the Sweeping Flood as “miniature allegorical dramas in which decent, bewildered people confront their own spiritual alienation, usually through epiphanies of emotional or physical violence.”<ref>Johnson, 1987 p. 30</ref> “Norman and the Killers” follows this allegorical formula, and like several other stories in the volume, the protagonist Norman “tries to order and fix experience through violence.”<ref>Creighton, 1979 p. 32</ref>

Literary critic Greg Johnson regards the stories in the collection ''Upon the Sweeping Flood'' as “miniature allegorical dramas in which decent, bewildered people confront their own spiritual alienation, usually through epiphanies of emotional or physical violence.”<ref>Johnson, 1987 p. 30</ref> “Norman and the Killers” follows this allegorical formula, and like several other stories in the volume, the protagonist Norman “tries to order and fix experience through violence.”<ref>Creighton, 1979 p. 32</ref>

== Footnotes ==

== Footnotes ==