Perfectionism In Lawrence Sargent's The Ledge

Numerous people want to be perfect no matter what obstacles they will encounter. However, an individual cannot overcome their obstacles if they are drawn to their ego of perfectionism. Lawrence Sargent Hall believe that having too much confident in an individual result in ignorance by not realizing how some unexpected signals are too easy to miss out. He writes a short story The Ledge to explore a nameless fisherman who has pride in crafting a perfect day of hunting ducks with his son and nephew. But the fisherman did not realize that his pride will put a risk on himself, his son, and his nephew on an unexpected event. In this way, Hall combines the flaws of oblivious and pride together to forewarn the reader about having overconfident in a

Because of that, he raises his hope that he will have the perfect weather with clear without any storms or tide changes. For example, during his trip with his son and nephew, he observed that “the earnestly wind would come up just stiff enough, the tide was right, and it was going to storm by tomorrow morning so the birds would be moving” (Hall). This shows that the fisherman concludes that the weather is cloudy without strong wind which signals that the ocean will have more ducks. Because of that, the fisherman believes that he is given this opportunity to hunt more ducks on his perfect day. Indeed, the fisherman is capable of perfecting his daily routine, however, he did not notice a sudden change on his son and nephew’s attitude during their

For example, the fisherman “saw the fishing boat making in the direction of home after hearing a sporadic distant gunfire” (Hall). This explains that the fisherman ignores the signal of returning home because he does not want his expectations to be a waste on Christmas day. However, not only did he fail to see the signal of the atmosphere but the sudden change of the tide which cause him to “felt the deep vacuity of disbelief” (Hall). The fisherman know immediately that his flawless day is ruined and he cannot recover from an unexpected moment. Because of that, the fisherman did not give his son and nephew an experience as promise on Christmas