The Labors of Hercules Beal

“And then it does. The sun shrugs over the edge of the globe, and the beams rush toward me through all that dark space, and they hit me full on, like the lights of a pickup truck that…forget it.”

Hercules personifies the rising sun as a human shrugging awake in the morning. The initial connotation is that the light provides joy to Hercules because it comes at him “through all that dark space,” suggesting that it is hope in his otherwise gloomy, grief-ridden world. However, when he ends with a simile comparing the sun’s rays to the headlights of a pickup truck, the tone shifts, and he cuts himself off. His parents died when a truck struck their vehicle, and this comparison steals the joy of the moment. Additionally, Hercules interrupts himself because, at this point, he does not want to address his feelings.

“If you are in the elementary school, you need to go back to the lobby—the one with the mynahs—and take the green stairs up to the second floor.”

The first words Lieutenant Colonel Hupfer says to Hercules are an assumption that the boy is younger than he is. This physical characterization of the boy establishes irony. Because his name is Hercules, the expectation is that he is physically massive and strong, yet the boy is small for his age.