Life is a Highway The title of the short story, “A History of Everything, Including You”, says it all; it describes a history of everything. The title has a very significant meaning behind it, which answers the narrator’s question of life and links her ideas to her own situations. From the beginning of how the earth was created until the narrator’s moments of her life, this story examines the whole world around us. This story definitely can relate to a lot of people because it discusses real life situations. However, some readers may be at different stages in their life, so they might have not experienced some of the situations the narrator went through, but eventually one might experience it. These three short pages fascinated me because life can be explained in such little words, yet it’s so complex. The history of everything in life all connects to the relationship between the narrator and her husband, which is both realistic and puts the story as a whole in a good perspective.
“FIRST, THERE WAS God there was god or gods or nothing, then synthesis, space, the expanse, explosions, implosions, particles, objects, combustion, and fusion” (Page 25). This sentence is quite creative because the author describes all the discoveries before people started to evolve then it starts to lead into the marriage of the narrator. Jenny Hollowell describes the change as the narrator talks about all the years passing by and all the events she goes through.
From the beginning until the end, the style of writing just impressed me because who knew life can be explained in just a few pages. Each sentence has a specific style that makes it both unique and necessary in describing this big image of life. The sentences are put in a way that the tone of each sentence makes the story so remarkable. The short simple sentences bring out more emotion to the reader about the events leading up to the narrator’s relationship. The tone definitely has a sad voice to it, but the author does a great job showing how life is also full of happiness and surprises.
Jenny Hollowell, the author put the sentences in such a good format that makes the words sound so powerful, because if she didn’t otherwise the whole story would just sound like a list of things about life. “You were born. I met you through friends, and didn’t like you at first. We fought and made up and got good jobs and got married and bought an apartment and worked out and ate more and talked less” (Page 26). These sentences can be interpreted as this person who is unsatisfied with her decision to get married. I think in the beginning the narrator makes us believe she wasn’t ready to have a child, but in the end having a child wasn’t that big of a deal. The author makes the readers feel as though the narrator was feeling this pain she wasn’t planning on feeling.
The tone in the beginning changes at the end because it starts off saying, “Life evolved or was created” (Page 25). You can picture the creation of life, species started to evolve and humans began naming themselves. “We are man and woman, and when we got lonely we figured out a way to make more of us” (Page 25). This sentence just describes how men and women started becoming intimate. The life of a baby is so innocent; they are born carefree and are oblivious to life. “The world seemed uncertain” (Page 27). The narrator definitely enjoyed life as a child because as she started to grow up, things changed and so did her life.
Later on, it is quite apparent that the narrator and her husband were going through some problems after they had fallen in love and had a child. “The feeling was mutual, but we got use to each other” (Page 26). The author describes their relationship whether they are fighting or struggling in a negative tone, but in the end they overcome their issues. “I got depressed and you ignored me. I was sick of you” (Page 27). In life, couples may have some ups and downs, but they seem to find a way to overcome their