Prompt 1: Regarding the theme.
The main theme in Brianne Goodspeed can be summed up in a single word, and that would be "pilgrimage". But as that was implied by Goodspeed herself, I personally feel like it would be too easy to excuse myself of further work and just state how her pilgrimage was indeed a pilgrimage. As such, As such, I would like to focus on a few other themes that are also prominent.
"Changing perspectives" is an important one. Literally, the first thing we learn about Goodspeed is that, as soon as she was old enough to stop using training wheels on her bike, her parents changed her perspective so that she would not touch it for years. We soon see her change again into a perspective in which she wants a new bike, despite her parents' warnings. By the later parts, she is so well-tuned with the machine that she "becomes one with it".
Another change in perspective comes from her thoughts on the people that she came across. She saw them, at first, as difficult to approach, but as the time went on, she came to realize that people would help her if she looked like she needed help, and would generally be pretty nice to her. In the end, we see Goodspeed actually become the stranger that a traveler approaches, and as she learned from the ones that helped her, she does what she can for the traveler and in the process has an interesting conversation.
Another noteworthy theme is "empowerment". When Goodspeed was a child, she lost the "power" of the bike, and when she found it again, she was hardly very "powerful". She was not confident in many aspects of her trip, for instance, with her perception of strangers. Even where she was, she was too inexperienced to feel good about a lot of the things that happened. But as she gains experience, she is shown to be more confident. She could ask for people's help. She could easily change a flat tire and actually enjoy doing so. And when she picks up her bike later, she references this theme directly "I felt the rush of power that a man must feel as he grabs a girl around the waist and scoops her onto his horse." As she says this, it is easy to see that this is a power she earned, with her time and effort invested on the trip.
One could make a case for many other themes, from "growth" to "feminism" and, and if one were feeling up to it, even "transcendentalism", but the afore-mentioned are the ones I felt most prominent.
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Prompt 2: Regarding effective language choices.
There are several interesting uses of language in the story. Before I go into my first one, I must first say this: The inclusion of French at times detracted from the effect of what is being said. For instance, when Goodspeed is asked "Tu fais du vélo? Toute seule et tu n'as pas peur?", meaning, "You're riding your bike? All alone and not afraid?" to which she answers: "Yes, I'm riding my bike. All alone. In fact, I'm terrified." While it is an understandable stylistic choice not to translate the French, it also opaques the style in her symmetric response unless the reader knows French, as it can be hard for a non-speaker to surmise exactly what was said by the French man, making Goodspeed's answer a bit disorienting for the reader.
That being said, when the concept of the pilgrimage is introduced, the French actually has the opposite effect as it did previously. Due to the similarity between the French "pélerinage" and the English "pilgrimage", as well as the inclusion of the English word in the same line, it actually increases the impact of the word, which in turn makes the word memorable so that its appearance in the ending is more meaningful. In other words, rather than overshadowing another stylistic choice, this instance highlights a certain bit of information, effectively marking it as one of the main themes in the story.
As for the second use of language that I found interesting, I would talk about the bike's names. The "Bad Boy" seems to have certain connotations. "Wild", "powerful", and "cool" are some that come to mind. But the qualities belong to the bike, not to Goodspeed. That is why the change into the "Bad Girl" is so significant: When changing the name, she deliberately chose one that was closer to her as a person than the last one. Therefore, she is not only making the bike's qualities resemble her, but she is also taking the bike's qualities for herself. And, of course, this change would also lend itself nicely to a feminist analysis, if one wished to perform one.
And that's all I have to say on the given prompts. I hope you enjoyed reading this as much as I did writing it. If you are a student and you read this far, then I hereby invite you to leave a comment with your thoughts, or to approach me after class with them, if such a discussion were to interest you.
Until next time,
Victor M. Barreiro
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