Reflection #3

That Hell-Bound Train

Robert Bloch

1. The protagonist name is Martin and his desire is to leave the life of petty larceny. Martin is orphaned when his father, in a drunken stupor, is killed by a train, and his mother runs away with a traveling salesman. Martin escapes from the orphanage and drifts from job to job, once even stealing hubcaps for a living. He is oddly attracted to trains, and he rides them everywhere he goes, continually humming a tune his father used to sing, That Hell-Bound Train.
2. The antagonist would be Martin himself because throughout the story Martin is struggling to obtain true happiness. Missing every opportunity that comes his way and when he does obtain it, he is still not satisfied and wants more. Causing him to lose his present happiness everytime.
3. The theme of the story would be, "be statisfied with what you have before its too late." The reason why I say this is because when the large, black, unmarked train  stops near Martin, the Conductor offers Martin anything he wants, in return for which he will ride that Hell-Bound Train when he dies. Martin believes he has outsmarted the Conductor by asking for the ability to stop time forever at the moment of his choosing, when he is happiest. The Conductor agrees, and gives him a pocket-watch with which he may stop time by unwinding the watch. As the reader progress in the story the reader will see the struggle of Martin trying to obtain true happiness and see how fast his life slips before him.
4. Bloch tone I think in the story was showing the struggles of life and how those distractions can stop you from obtaining whats truly important before you realize its too late. Bloch always has a surprising twist in his stories.  For example, the train Conductor, even though Bloch never stated if this was true or not, he seemed like the devil himself, but disguised. Especially when the mysterious train came out of nowhere to Martin and then vanished when he made his wish seemed highly suspicious. Nothing for life comes for free, just about everyone knows that, except for Martin it seems. Even though this is a fictional story its a story that can truly relate to life because people do get caught up on trying to make it in the world without working for it, not realizing till the very end that they will get nowhere in life by doing so and will lose the ones they love in the process.
5. The crisis action in the story would be when the Conductor tells Martin that others have tried this wish, but they also never found the perfect moment, always waiting for something better, until they died just like him. Martin laments for a moment, but realizes there are others on the Hell-Bound Train, and they are all having their last and greatest time. To the Conductor's surprise and horror, Martin chooses that moment to stop time, thus rendering the train and all its riders permanently traveling. Martin may not have exactly achieved his goal of true happiness, but when he realized other people happiness within the train he decided to help stop time for them so they could receive true happiness forever. Martin finally put his selfishness aside and was rewarded by being the new brakeman on That Hell-Bound Train.
6. What I enjoy most of all the stories that I've read by Robert Bloch so far are the twists he presents at the end of his stories. Also the storyline behind it remind me so much of real life and my favorite T.V. show, the Twilight Zone. A poor, orphaned boy, presented by a gift anyone would die to have, a watch that stops time when your at most truly happy. Not knowingling realizing that by having the ability to do so he lost his wife, his son and his fortune, trying to find true happiness when it was infront of him all along. I think we do that a lot in life, take things for granted, especially family. Not realizing that life is short and you can lose the ones you love at any moment, so its best to try and do as much good as you can for the ones you love. Martin realized it was too late for him at the end when age finally caught up to him, but when he realized he could help others he decided to do so and was rewarded in the end. Sometimes just that one sacrifice or change can truly make a difference in other people lives as well as your own.