The Ice Skating Party

The Breaking of Ice at the Skating Party

The night of the skating party hold events that is romantic, symbolic and tragic.

Two versions of the story told by two people present at the skating party share insight into the versions they believe to be true, except one story teller has a few secrets that has laid guilt on his mind for over thirty years. Merna Summers' The Skating Party holds a lesson in love and life; Nathan and Winnie Singleton's stories are different, Winnie believes Nathan tragically lost his 'wife to be' in a skating accident, when in reality Nathan loses a love, no one else but him knows of. Nathan's thoughts on the mood of the night, and his indirect statement referring to his tragic episode will reveal why the narrator considered it peculiar that Uncle Nathan had never married and who he was really in love with.

Winnie's version of the skating party is accompanied with darkness so beautiful that Nox the goddess of night could be present; the night ski fluttered with moon light and cloud, the bon fire's demon like reflection quivered over the frozen water. Friends and family dance with one another oblivious to anything outside their magic ice-land. As the night advanced, people went up to the house where the party would continue; two young ladies went in opposite directions of everyone else and went through the thin ice.

"Near the fire, people heard their [the two girls]

cries for help. A group of men skated out to rescue

them." (Summers pg. 190-191)

At the front of the line was Nathan Singleton, and coincidently the two girls being saved are his wife to be Eunice and her sister Delia, the party was being held for both Nathan and Eunice on the account of their up coming marriage; and now Nathan is linked with several other men from the party trying to save his fiancй and her sister. Winnie tells the story of her brother in-laws encounter with death.

"Your uncle Nathan risked his life, my mother said...

There was no way on earth he could save both girls."

(Summers pg.191)

Tragically, Nathan did not save both girls, during the ordeal the moon was hiding behind the clouds and Nathan could not make out faces, he grabbed the first set of hands he could and the other pair went under without a trace. Winnie and everyone else share the feeling of, how ironic and sad; we all know Nathan wanted to save his love Eunice.

"It troubled me that he had [not] had some

way of knowing . I would have expected

love to be able to call out to love"

(Summers pg.191)

In Winnie's eyes, Nathan saves the wrong girl and regrets his poor judgment for the rest of his life that by him making that mistake, there is the irony; he loses his love by grabbing the wrong hands from the freezing lake.

Uncle Nathan shows indirectly and directly that he is in love with Delia not Eunice;

"I [Nathan] suppose I liked Eunice at

first because she looked so much like

Delia" (Summers pg. 196)

Nathan