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161Nothingness in %u201cThe Hollow Children%u201dMia Le MeurNothingness should be neutral. After all, it is nothing. Neither good nor bad, right nor wrong, pleasure nor pain. The absence of anything. And yet, this oblivion can be terrifying. In her short story %u201cThe Hollow Children,%u201d Louise Erdrich depicts an antagonist who is not a monster or a witch, but nothingness. Throughout the story, Erdrich develops the theme that nothingness%u2014in sight, sound, and touch%u2014can be the most formidable enemy of all.As Ivek attempts to navigate the schoolchildren to school, the blizzard creates a void of white: he sees nothing. That is the core of the problem. It all started when Ivek %u201csaw it%u2014a boiling white mass rolling at him like annihilation,%u201d ready to reduce the students to nothing. Erdrich%u2019s intimidating description of the stormy setting conveys how powerful an enemy the blizzard is. Ivek loses the road and is left to drive blindly, only feeling the texture of the prairie below the bus. It almost seems useless to try to see through the blank expanse of snow, but he drives on, %u201cwithout taking his eyes off the nothingness.%u201d Ivek is aware that relentlessly staring into the abyss of white has its consequences beyond the trip: %u201cStaring desperately hard, he wondered about snow blindness.%u201d If this goes on for too long, he may never see anything again. The nothingness before Ivek%u2019s eyes is his main opponent and the story%u2019s primary antagonist.Nothingness threatens not only sight, but also sound. As soon as the bus is struck by the blizzard, %u201cthe children [go] dead silent.%u201d The quiet atmosphere is anything but peaceful. It holds the children in a chokehold as they believe their fate is sealed, and they are doomed to freeze. But someone knows how to fight this silence: Agnid Awbrey. A natural leader, she enlivens her peers with her cheerful songs, and suddenly, everything seems to be okay again. The children grow louder, stomp their feet and clap their hands, protecting themselves from the cold without even realizing it. As a group of heroic main characters do, everyone on the bus rises up to fight their fear and combat their enemy: silence.Despite the children%u2019s vivacity, nothingness strikes again in a new form: touch. As the bus is gliding across the frozen lake, there is suddenly no longer anything beneath them. The bus plunges into the lake. There is no feeling, %u201cno fear or pain,%u201d as the vehicle sinks deeper. And when Ivek turns around, he notices something odd: %u201c[T]he children had become hollow. They were transparent and so frail that they were almost unbearably weighted down by their clothing.%u201d The children have lost their bodies. Their flesh becomes a concept, more than a physical presence. It seems as though Ivek could swipe his hands through the seats and feel nothing. The children he has been charged with protecting seem to be gone. But this horrifying moment is also nothing physical%u2014nothing but Ivek%u2019s imagination. Without the ability to feel the real world around him, Ivek is Analysis of Theme in Fiction Writing WorkshopCopyright %u00a9 Bedford, Freeman & Worth Publishers. Distributed by Bedford, Freeman & Worth Publishers. For review purposes only. Not for redistribution.