Straight Pool By John O'Hara

5 Pages 1133 Words

The short story “Straight Pool“, written by John O’Hara, is one of the most interesting and mysterious stories in the anthology, Points of View. The story shows O’Hara’s masterful ability to create drama and intrigue and to involve the reader in the lives of three characters in few short pages. “Straight Pool” is a very ambiguous story in which the main point of the story is left up to the reader’s imagination. The story begins with a monologue by a loyal, yet confused husband, who is playing pool with his friend Jack Mc Morrow. The speaker is discussing his wife and her problems and his feelings about her behavior. But the monologue can be viewed in different lights. On surface, this could be a simple story about two friends playing pool while one complains about his wife. However, with the clues given throughout the text and some imagination, it might be that the narrator’s wife is having an affair with his pool partner.
In the beginning of the story, the narrator discusses how long it has been since he has even picked up a cue stick. He talks about his wife, Mae and how she keeps having crying fits, and that he is afraid to leave her alone. As a result he says that he stopped playing pool to take care of his wife. He goes on to say that if he does try to leave the house, his wife “all of a sudden stops crying and sits there looking at me, not saying a word, and it’s worse than her crying. (Pg. 32)” In the scenario in which it seems like Mae is having an affair, she could be crying because she feels lost in her marriage and so guilty about her actions. Every time she sees him it reminds her about how bad she feels and what she is doing and she starts sobbing. It seems that she still cares about her husband, but she does not love him. For example, she will not tell him that she his having an affair, either because she is afraid, or just does not want to see him hurt. It could also be argued that her action...