Ambiguity in Coovers Quenby and Ola, Swede and Carl :: Quenby and Ola, Swede and Carl Essays

Ambiguity in Coover's Quenby and Ola, Swede and Carl    Ambiguity occurs often in writing, and readers often choose to fill in the blanks with facts, which are not from the text. By filling in spaces in the story, the reader creates a plot, which fits into their understanding. In Coover's "Quenby and Ola, Swede and Carl," the plot is ambiguous. Many of these ambiguities are subtle and are easily overlooked, leading the reader to make assumptions about the text. Simple words, phrases, or the language leads the reader to a plot, which almost fits the text. As a reader, I was not satisfied that there was no definitive plot in which I could understand the story. I read the story several times and came up with three different realities; none of them agreed completely with the text. My first conclusion of the story was that the story took place over the course of a week, and that all pieces of the story occurred. My second understanding was that the two sex scenes were both fantasies and that the other pieces took place over the cou rse of the week. Finally, the last conclusion I drew was that everything had happened, but during different years. Each of these plots, which I created out of the story's ambiguity, is invalid if you include all of the text and don't disregard some textual evidence and language. Thus the ambiguity causes the reader to fill in blanks and disregard textual discrepancies. By filling in the blanks and creating an understanding for themselves, the reader is destroying the text.    My understanding of the story after the initial reading was that all of the parts took place while Ola was fourteen. I fit the pieces in order of dinner (which leads to the living room), the story, the sex with Quenby, the sex with Ola, and Swede and Carl on a stagnant boat. In this plot, the story opens with all four people eating a bass dinner and then moving into the living room to sit in front of the empty fireplace. Ola then proceeds to tell the story while Carl describes "... her flowering breasts under the orange shirt, her young hips packed snugly in last year's bright white shorts, her soft girlish thighs, slender calves: these were not Swede's" (152).