Critique of the Hedgehog Story

While listening to the numerous oral stories that were presented over the last few weeks there were a few that stood out to me personally for being structurally complete and having that extra comedic factor that kept my attention. One of these stories was based on a hedgehog, told by James Wayne.  Wayne's comedic voice shone through the tragic events that unfolded as he lost a newly obtained family pet.

The way that the story was delivered held the audience’s attention through the entire three minute time period.  He was very theatrical in deliverance yet not over the top with dramatic pauses or gestures.  It was astatically pleasing to watch the deliverance as well as amusing to notice the sarcastic tone in which the story was told.

The tale started off with James as the main character telling about the numerous pets his family had accumulated over his lifetime. He did a good job of describing the setting of the story with vivid detail.  It was easy to visualize a home setting with numerous animals and chaos especially when he introduced his mother as the “artsy type”.

 Yet the introduction of the mother character and her longing for a hedgehog confused me just a bit as I could not clearly tell whom the main character of the story was anymore.  The story was being told from an omniscient third person point of view but with two main characters.  In my opinion it would have made a clearer plot line to just use one character, but I did like the depth that both characters brought to the story. 

As we approached the action of the tale suspense built as the hedgehog was taken to the vet to be treated.  The comic relief Wayne threw in there was much needed and a great way to lighted a sad situation at the time.  Also the way he delivered the part about his sister imagining that the hedgehog was wearing a tiny oxygen mask was very well done and had the audience laughing, but I felt that he stayed away from the comedy a little too quickly as he abruptly switched tones to end the story.

The ending did well in summarizing the story but I felt it was a little to inconclusive.  We were not given personal emotions of the characters and how they felt about the hedgehog passing away.  The story did a great job in building suspense but then sort of dropped off at the end with no ties back to the mother, setting, or even main character.   This may have been due to a shortage of time while telling the story, which is understandable.   If ever made into a short screenplay, I would love to see the emotional sides of the characters and maybe even how the death of the hedgehog affected the story as a whole or led to a higher meaning or teaching. 

Overall I felt the story was very well put together in balancing comedy and tragedy.  Maybe narrowing the choice of the main character and giving a little work to the ending would make it easier to develop as a short film.  But Wayne did a great job with keeping the audience attention and telling the story of a fallen family pet.

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