Max by Ron Carlson
The story name “Max” was written by Ron Carlson in 1986. The author himself said that “I did not understand my story; many times you don’t. It’s not your job to understand or evaluate or edit your work when you first emerge from it. Your duty is to be in love with it, and that defies explanation”, explain a reason why the story “Max” is a little bit confusing at first.
In my opinion, Maxwell is a flat and static character. He has shown his characteristic of materialized and from the beginning to the end of the story. He only want the best for himself, for example when he said “scotch. Just scotch. No ice.” (97) He play a crucial role in the story because he do most of the talking, talk about his work in the museum, talk about his new girlfriend. 3 characteristic of Maxwell that can be seen clearly which are impatient, a swindler, and a flaunt. He is rude when his girlfriend cannot be on time, because she has an aerobics class. The author describe “his color turning” when Maxwell explaining the reason to him.
Instead of being rude he could just tell the author nicely that his girlfriend cannot come at the right time because she is busy with her aerobics class, but he seems not happy, everything have to be in his command, acting like he is a boss to others people . When Max jabbed Maxwell, Maxwell suddenly really scared, then he sit down and said “scotch. Just scotch. No ice.” (97), which is a rude reaction to others people. Also he has been described as a “simple crook” when he damage the borrowed work to see its insurance and put some of insurance money in his pocket. For example he damaged a painting, then he claimed to the insurance company that this painting has been damaged; therefore, they will pay him the insurance of the painting, and he will put some of it in his own pocket.
Maxwell also can be seen as a flaunt person, who always try to showing off what he got. For instances, the author said “Cody…her favourite parts, Maxwell’s catalogue(including store and prices) of the clothing and jewelry he was wearing tonight”. The sentence is a perfect description of how swanky Maxwell is, the clothes he wear probably interesting, luxury and catching people’s eyes; however, his attitude will definitely make people dont interesting in him anymore. Another example is how he showing off his girlfriend, the author wrote “Maxwell would show her off for a while”, because this is his new girlfriend so Maxwell introduce her to everyone. It suppose to be an introduction until Maxwell show her off with everyone, bragging.
