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Picking Fights over Strangers over Small Indignities: "King Curtis’s Echo” by Max Thayer,

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In the short story, “King Curtis’s Echo”, by Max Thayer, the author mostly focuses on his revelation that in the spirit of self-preservation, picking fights with strangers over small indignities, is a bad idea and can have fatal consequences. He does not bring to light the other obvious point in his tale: possessing people skills to begin could have prevented the situation altogether. A little tact, patience, and forethought would have gone a long way in sparing the author the plethora of indignities that he ultimately brought upon himself. Approaching the deli patron with a little finesse would clearly have helped Max Thayer’s cause, but it is obvious that he does not possess such character …show more content…

If Thayer had thought about what sort of out come he wanted before he left his home perhaps there wouldn’t have been further obscenities exchanged over something as inconsequential as a parking space. He shows the reader that he is reacting to every little nuance this man projects, “He smirked when we passed each other.” And, “Our eyes met as he smirked again.” Thayer is highly reactive, a loose canon, and since he does not notice this, it leads the reader to believe that he may not notice more of his own character flaws. Such as, that the author’s self-righteousness is preventing him from being aware that he could be unfairly judging this stranger with his own prejudices. Thayer has never met this man, yet has made several assumptions about his character based on his physical appearance, “… fit and full of himself, nonchalantly waved off the appeal and sauntered around the corner…” Having forethought and social grace could have really helped Thayer’s cause, but he never picks up on this. Stepping back, taking a breath or two, and having patience for other people would surely have been an asset to this exchange. After he felt antagonized too easily by the man’s response that he, “calm down”, he could have taken that for an astute observation and realized that perhaps the

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