Question 6.

Barbara Burhman's final question in the story, "Life After High School" by Joyce Carol Oates was an appropiate closure because it is a reflection and direct unfolding of one of Barbara's defining core characteristics and how she really truly feels about Zachary: cold-hearted indifference. Throughout the story, it can be inferred that Barbara really did not value or care about her relationship with Zach. On page 579, it says "Sunny's secret vanity must have been what linked them." This sentence proves that one of the reasons Barabara continued to interact with Zach was because she was flattered by his admiration towards her, and it also made her feel better about herself. It also gave her a false believe that she was succeeding in helping Zachary believe in God, which also made her feel better about herself. Barbara did not even notice when Zachary was away from school for a couple days which shows that his existence did not have much significance to her. After Zachary's death, Barabara appeared to be going through a grieving period, not  because she was depressed over the fact that Zachary was gone from her life or that she had missed his presence, but because she felt bad because it was her fault. Zachary's death was what it took for Barabara to kill her facade.It made her feel as if her facade did more harm than good. The afromentioned are good examples of how much selfishness Barbara had in her and because of that, she is a cold-hearted person and is only affected by Zachary's death because it affects her image, and how much guilt it shot her with. Never after Zachary's death did Barbara ever mentions something positive about Zachary as a human being. The closing line, "After an hour or so Barbara Burhman leaned across the table, as at one of her professional meetings, to ask, in a tone of intellectual curiousity, "What do you think Zachary planned to do with that clothesline?" confirms all speculations, interpretations, and assumptions of Barbara's cold-hearted nature, as fact. Even after her grieving period was over, Barbara speaks of Zachary's death as if she had not emotional, or personal connection with him. To ask the question she asked in a "tone of intellectual curiosity" shows that, Barbara, even after years shows the same detachment which proves this to be one of her defining characteristics.