“the Portable Phonograph” Analysis

The story of “The Portable Phonograph” takes place after a nuclear war. The tone and atmosphere of the story is dark and depressing. The character of the harsh man is being just like the tone he, himself is gloomy and negative. This would cause him to dislike Shelley, because it’s full of positive vibes. In the short story, “The Portable Phonograph” the harsh man dislikes Shelley due to the fact he doesn’t believe they can’t relate to his writing in their condition and because Shelley is something he can never be, a writer.

With this in mind, the main reason he doesn’t like Shelley is because his writing has too much soul meaning he has too much spirit making his writing really positive and unlike Shelley he doesn’t have a soul after the war he’s been in . This justifies why the harsh man thinks that they can’t handle his writing. “That’s more soul than we can use”, said the harsh man. “Moby Dick is better” (Clark 3). He is giving the reason why he doesn’t necessarily like him, he has too much soul in his writing and he wouldn’t be available to relate to him since he has nothing. The harsh man also dislikes Shelley due to the fact that he thinks they shouldn’t have a soul because of their situation. “You will have a little soul left until you die,” said another harshly (Clark 3). He thinks they will die with little soul because things won’t get better making you lose hope day after day. This causes the harsh man to dislike Shelley for not being available to handle his writing in the situation he is in.

Futhermore, the harsh man dislikes Shelley because he will never be a writer and that’s all he wanted. After the war, there was barely anything left so he didn’t have a chance on becoming a writer. “I want paper to write on,” he said. “And there is none” (Clark 2). The harsh man despites Shelley because Shelley is a writer and he doesn’t even have a paper to write on, making his hopes of