"Own Choice" By Fatima Adalbayeva

I found this short story in a magazine which even though it is written by someone in my generation made me stop for at least 30 minutes just so I could read it. It is called Own Choice and written by a definate next generation author. This story is actually a story in a stroy. The author starts off in first person as she is trying to talk to this old women who is sat next to her on a train. She describes the olf women as sitting "passivley like a confused child with miserable Pierot's eyes." The simily in the scentance automatically helped to draw me into this story as you immediatly have many questions about this women that you want to ask like: What is her story?" As I read on the author began to answer this question for me which even though this story maybe sad as the womens miserable eyes give a clue to this, it still made me want to ready on to find about what made her sad.

The setting of the old womens story is set on where the author origanlly came from, Kazakhstan. This is wtitten in the third person so when the old lady is descrbing the surronding of Kazakhstan, you get a sense of autually being there as the author obviously knows whats she is talking about which also helps to answer questions about where the author lived to. Kazakhstan is described to have lots of town and villages with a massie division through it, making it diffucult to people to reach there destanation. You get the sense it is winter: "Gloomy day, a sullen wind followed by snow nippedat intervals theentire afternoon." The way the day is described also helps to show this story maybe have the sad side to it. There is some personifaication "moaning wind" and from this you can really get the idea of the struggle life is there and especally for this women who you find out is a widow with 2 children.

Descriptions of things around the setting like "the inky black moon" and "eerie silence" really helps to create atmosphere in the jorney this widow is taking.