1A “Peg” Commentary (can be used for your Works Cited Page)

While Sam Shaw’s “Peg” evidences an assured, witty writer and gives us deliciously grotesque images and darkly absurd situations, his story is a dud because of Shaw’s reliance on stock, stereotype characters, his trite excoriation of empty suburban life, and a one-note joke, a talking head, that provides an all-too easy closure for a story that is bereft of any original ideas. George is a lonely sad sack and his loveless wife Rita is a shrew, but they’re too cartoonish to care about. The images of consumerism—piles of junk mail and electronic gadgets—are hackneyed.  And the gimmick of George retreating into an insane world with an imaginary companion, a talking head, is simply ridiculous and does not add poignancy or depth to a half-baked story written by a very talented writer.