Summary Of Melinda By Judy Doenges

The short story, “Melinda,” by Judy Doenges, primarily focuses on an addict’s first-person account of her life as a meth addict. Fritzie, formerly the well-off Melinda Renée von Muehldorfer, is a habitual drug abuser living on a meth farm where she is surrounded by other meth addicts. Later on in the story, it is revealed that a second component of their operation is identity theft - Fritzie returns to her childhood neighborhood to steal a local family’s credit card information. The story relies heavily on this first person point of view, which allows the reader to enter the fictional reality that the protagonist is living in, while simultaneously providing a striking, if not comedic, contrast to the real world (the world that the reader lives in). At the beginning of the story, Fritzie says, “My grandma told me once that von means my ancestors were German royalty. James says, You’re out of your castle now, babe” (39). By giving this brief history of her life, Fritzie

However, she is aware of how she is viewed in the eyes of people outside of the farm. When she goes to the grocery store to buy items for the drug operation, she says the grocery clerk notes the “new kind of acne” on her face, and “the shaking [credit] card” (42). Every moment that passes, she loses a bit more of her former self, culminating with her experience at the von Behren’s house where she actually robs a family that is the mirror image of the life she used to live. While inside the von Behren’s residence, she seems sober at first, thinking of excuses on the fly as to why she is at their house, and maintaining her composure overall. However, it immediately becomes apparent that she is not as composed as she was trying to be, and Mrs. von Behren picks up on this: You know, I say, von in a name means your family were princes or something in Germany. Way back. I’ve got it