Response Essay: “Gretchen the Squid"

Every person in this world is born to do something with their lives, to have goals and dreams and try hard in order to be able to achieve them. Could you ever imagine how life would be without goals, if everybody lives their lives without a purpose? In the short-short story of Dave Eggers, “Gretchen the Squid”, dreams and goals are the main topic. Gretchen who is an enormous squid wants more than anything in the world to be an accountant. She lives in the Caspian Sea with her family. Even though her parents are being supportive so far for all of her dreams, she knows that they will never approve this one, her dream of being an accountant.

With this short-short story, Egger’s efforts for presenting a letter of appeal are obvious. He chooses to use an enormous squid in the place of a person; a squid with goals, dreams, and hopes. In real life this can easily be taken as a surreal joke, for the obvious reason of course that an enormous squid can never be taken as an accountant. He uses third person in the whole story and also the tone of voice is serious and sympathetic (deadpan humor). The writer uses a very smart way to capture the reader’s attention by using the serious tone of voice, and the not too serious context. There is a contrast between the tone of voice and the context because the tone as I said is serious but the context is ridiculous and funny. The implied reader of the story is a well educated accountant who most probably wears a “smartly tailored suit, black pumps and glasses, prepares annual returns for a Fortune 500 company, finds tax loopholes in unexplored places,” and of course the drinks afterwards at a downtown TGI Friday's.

The fact that in his short-short story, Egger describes an enormous squid, that also has a name, Gretchen, makes the story more personal. He concentrates on her one and only dream, to be an accountant and study at the best university for accountants, the University of Illinois. Gretchen is an ambitious, very confident squid, but most importantly she is a dreamer. She’s also afraid of letting herself down and she wants to change her image, to make it fit similar to that of a perfect accountant. What is more important to this short-story is the fact that the writer uses an enormous squid in the place of what could have been an overweight, ugly woman who is going after her dream and goals. In this way the writer shows the unfairness, the racism, and the stereotyping of people, that exists is in the world. Gretchen is embarrassed of her appearance and sad because she cannot do what she most wants in the world; some people feel like this every day. They are afraid of the misunderstanding that their appearance would cause and the discrimination they are going to deal with. Gretchen wants to do what she is best at, but she cannot do it; this is very unfair for her.

Furthermore, Gretchen wants to go to the United States and live the American dream. Many people from Eastern Europe and Asia go to the United States, full with ambitions, dreams and goals to achieve a better and a happier life. They seek for an opportunity to live the American dream which they consider it to be the ideal way of living. It is worth mentioning that Gretchen, a squid of the salt water lives in the Caspian Sea, a sweet water lake. Similar to those people who are captured by their own system, cultures or religions. Also the writer mentions T.G.I Fridays which is a chain restaurant, very typical in America for young business people. The reason that it mentions this is to shows us that Gretchen wants to be like them, to go there after work and have a drink with her colleagues.

In conclusion in this short-short story the issues of discrimination, racism and stereotyping are being raised. Gretchen the enormous squid who dreams of becoming an accountant and work in a big firm, and study in the University of Illinois, is being held back by her appearance, her location and her parents not approval. The unfair judgment that some people go through their lives, because of their names and ids, is a way of isolating people among us. Everybody should chase their dreams, goals and ambitions, and try their best to achieve them. All people no matter, color, race, religion, or political believes, should have equal opportunities, equal chances, to be who they want to be in their lives. They should not be limited nor by the Caspian Sea, nor by their size, nor by their environment; they should be accepted and valued for what they are.