Until Something Happens Analysis

Bryson Miguel’s “Until Something Happens” is a postmodernist, deconstructionist short story that depicts the entropic nature of language and implies that, despite efforts to apply order and meaning to our words, we are only as effectively understood as someone else effectively understands. Miguel’s story also suggests that the true significance of our stories and life experiences are often ambiguous. There is no single and objective meaning to discover, but rather the subjective act of interpreting what is significant results in the creation of meaning. Miguel uses absurdity and humor to portray realistic characters and scenery, creating an interesting mood that is both ridiculous while remaining perfectly believable. This balance of absurdism and realism is hard to find, but Miguel hits just the right note to get their point across. The point they make is: Life is both incredibly absurd and incredibly real; our experiences both meaningful and pointless. “Until Something Happens” is able to unify these seeming antitheses, resulting in a …show more content…
The inclusion of a story within a story emphasizes the indeterminacy and complexity of life by acknowledging the multilayered nature of experience and reality. The storyteller is unable to remember the name of a “sorta famous puppet,” which again emphasizes the limitations of language while reinforcing the claim about the transience of reality and experiences. However, the fact that the character’s story is not impeded by the absence of this factual information implies that such information may not actually be all that important. Miguel’s story continually states and then undermines what is important, supporting the idea that the interpreter determines what is significant through the process of