There are several themes in "The Big 5-0": one is ageing and death; instead of telling the reader this, instead of speaking to the reader's conscious mind through the use of exposition I let the reader's sub-conscious mind discover this theme through image, the use of specific, concrete details.
The first image of ageing and death is the first paragraph:
"On the marble mantelpiece in the living room of a home in a suburb of Pittsburgh sits a framed black and white snapshot of Nate Johnson and five other boy soldiers standing in front of a hootch."
They are boy soldiers, the snapshot was taken in 1966. And notice that the paragraph begins in the present tense but ends in the past tense.
Farther on in the story are the terms, "fading daylight," "fading light" and "shadowy night."
Nate and Cory talk while sitting at the picnic table in the shadowy night while: "Out beyond the front lawn a car rubbered past going much too fast."
So that near the end of the story when Cory says, "There's only one alternative to growing old" the reader has been prepared for this statement even though I (the narrator) have never talked about ageing and approaching death.
And when Cory realizes that Nate has been feeling his mortality to the point that it makes her say "Honey?" the reader understands her concern.
All of this is achieved through concrete, specific details. Image, concrete details allows a reader to "live" in the story. This is why a picture is worth a thousand words.
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