The Story I chose came from the American Wild issue, titled “Exotics” by Callan Wink, which follows a man named James through troubling times trying to find himself.
James, is seemingly going through the loss of a significant other, whom he was going to propose to, but something came in the way. It never fully approaches who she is or what exactly happened but we do follow the scene in which, James is with another lover whom seems to be the woman he cheated with. The story is somber and follows a mid-west teacher, trying to find himself in a short summer mixed with Texas accents and hard work. James admires his wealthy brother, who is married and seems to live the ideal life. However, after staying a short time with him brother , Casey, he decides that the perfect life isn’t for him and travels to Albuquerque. James begins working on a ranch in New Mexico, where he feeds wild life and mends fences, becoming a “real man.”
While, James seems to doubt his abilities. He receives a call from his brother who longs for a life Jmes leads filled with drinking beer, and being out in nature. But James, then realizes that that life isn’t for him nor his brother and contemplates with his boss Karl, what he should do. They began talking about a zebra as an analogy. The zebra does not belong in Texas, it instead belongs in the Sahara. In Texas it would get hunted down for game, and would not succeed. Whereas in Africa nature may have a better chance of taking its course. James then decides to quit avoiding his own problems and return back to Montana.
The above image is how I have categorized the character’s in the story mentioned. Some know James, other do not. James is considered indecisive because he does not know himself well enough to identify. I tried to include the graph link, however I had a hard time identifying the html format. However, below I have included the graph images that correspond to my excel image above.
The connection to all of the characters leads back to James, and how they have evolved changed, and made the story more interesting. They are split up by relation, occupation, place and their knowledge of James. I realize my flaw in putting relation, because I should have put James for all the related people except Ellen Realbird. However, since I did it this way the nodes will not all correspond to James, but rathe r a different set of nodes of how they know James instead.
It is interesting to point out the sense of place within this story as well, because it ventures to 3 different locations varying ” American Wild” which relates back to the original theme of the issue. Supporting that place is beneficial to James, and the story itself.