What Is The Theme Of Clean By Edward J. Delaney

Kiran Bist
Dr. Marsha Newman
English 102
11 December 2016
Clean: Theme analysis
The story by Edward J Delaney “clean” is the compilation of remorse that people encounter while hiding deep and dark secrets. Keeping up with the story we realize how the round character felt in the keeping the secret with in him. This short story is about how people’s hard work for hiding a secret but to feel the guilt for rest of the life. Every individual has a past with a wrong decision that they don’t want to share with others. It’s a usual human behavior to come out clean even when they commit a mistake. The theme of the story is depicting the tendency of all human beings to hide mistakes but with a certain price of lifelong contemplation and the reason

Delaney has laid out a perfect pathway for the readers to understand the theme. From the start of the story, Delaney, talks about the mistake the round character made, drunk with fifth cheap of vodka and half a gallon of orange juice. This mistake can be regarded as the symbolic representation of the mistake that we human being make in our life. The trail of events that occur after the round character commits the mistake are Delaney’s clever way of representing the desperation of human being to come out clean. Delaney may not have recited the title of the story regularly but has skillfully used every series of events to speak for itself. The desperation of three guys not to get caught and still be called as clean regardless their huge mistake is representing how most of the people think and

To speak out the truth. Even though people are aware about this fact, they tend to ignore it. The reason is the greed of coming out clean. People cannot risk speaking out the mistakes they have made to prevent losing their dignity and respect in the society. Just like the round character in this story, people keep the secrets of their mistake tied close to their chest and tend to take it to death bed. It’s ironic that even though we can end our misery by just speaking up or confession our crimes, we chose to be silent. This truly represents how important society is for us. One mistake -all the respect you earned, good deeds you did- goes out of the window. That is how people are viewed. Rather than looking at the hundred-good deeds, people keep fixating on a single wrong doing. If only society had a better view point, confession of crimes might have been easier than it is now. Millions of people would not be in their homes contemplating on the mistakes they did twenty years