The Way Up To Heaven - Reading notes

1. The Way Up To Heaven is a macabre short story and the genre is

Horror and Fantasy fiction

2. The story is about a couple that have been married for over 30 years,
Mr. and Mrs. Foster. Mrs. Foster has a pathological fear of being
late and her husband seems to torment her by making her wait. They
have a daughter that lives in France because she is married to a
Frenchman, and Mrs. Foster is going to visit them, to see for the
first time her grandchildren. The first time she tried to catch the
plane it was postponed to the next day because of the weather. The
next day she was heading to the airport but has always his husband
was making her waste time in order to torment her and tried to make
her lose the flight. Mr. Foster told his wife that she could not
leave yet because he had forgot to give her a present for their
daughter, so he run into the house to ``look´´ for it, but he got
stuck in the lift, and Mrs. Foster saw this as her opportunity to
get rid of his oppressing husband. She went to Paris and spend six
lovely weeks with his daughter and grandchildren and when she
returned to New York she didn’t felt guilty for the death of his
husband, she even felt stronger.

3. It is a crime story, and the theme is the murder of the husband and
the fear of being late of Mrs. Foster.

4. Mrs. Foster is a good loving wife, loyal and modest. She is not a
nervous person but she has a pathological fear of being late, which
causes her to become hysterical and anxious every time she is late.

Mr. Foster on the other hand seems to enjoy being late. He also
enjoys tormenting his wife, by playing with her emotion and making
her be late and waste time, something that makes his wife become
hysterical and anxious.
5. The story develops in the same period as the author, around 1955.
The places where the story develops are New York and Paris.

6. The structure divides in Beginning, Middle and Ending.

Beginning: the readers are expose to the main character and the
relationship they have.

Middle: here we can see how the action develops, how Mrs. Foster gets
anxious because of the flight and how his husband enjoys emotionally
torturing his wife.

Ending: at the end of the story were the action falls, Mrs. Foster
finally goes to Paris, and her husband dies. We can observe how Mrs.
Foster attitude change right after her husband died, she became more
confident.

7. The language used is quite simple and easy to follow, the story is
overall quite ironic and satiric because of the way Mr. Foster dies.
Although it is categorized in the horror fiction genre it does not
present that much suspense, it is rather more intriguing, because
you really don’t know what has happens until the very end.

8. The narrator is third-person and outsider to the action, and the

irony of the story is given trough his remarks. It employs Mrs.
Forester’s point of view throughout the story, and it seems to have
an extensive knowledge of her thoughts and feelings.

9. ``At least half an hour before it was time to leave the house for
the station, Mrs. Foster would step out of the elevator all ready to
go, with hat and coat and gloves, and then, being quite unable to
sit down, she would flutter and fidget…´´

This quote represents the fear of Mrs. Foster of being late, that
why she is prepared way earlier than she would have to, and that she
is unable to sit down and wait because waiting cause her anxiety.
10. At the end of the story Mrs. .Foster take revenge on his husband
because of all the years he had being emotionally torturing her. From
my point of view what the story is trying to teach us is the problems
of toxic relationships, many time we don’t realize we are in one,
but as soon as we get out of it we become a different person, as Mrs.
Foster became much more confident after her husband died.

11. Personally I found the story easy to follow but not engaging, I think
the plot lacked intriguing elements and although the end was
surprising I didn’t get it the first time, I had to read the end
several time to fully understand what had happened. Although the
story was not my cup of tea I found the moral lesson helpful and
important.