Narrative Analysis

The abstract of this narrative is the introduction, with a judge detailing that the total student loan debt in the country has reached $1.5 trillion. This story focuses on Eddy Encinales and her experience with student debt. The orientation of the story is when she details how she accrued the debt: she studied hard in school, enrolled in a college that she desired for education, and studied her way through; she did not drop out, nor did she lose focus on her studies. She graduated, and then had to face her debt. The complicating action arises when she describes that she will not be finished paying off her loan debt until she is 42, and that this alters plans that she may have, with wanting to buy a house or have children. The result is that she is paying $850 a month, which is 1/3 of her salary; it restricts her budget in her day to day life, as well as delaying life plans. The evaluation of this story is an embedded one; Eddy tells that she is interested in going to grad school, but all of the fears that she listed might be holding her back. The coda of this story is Eddy relating her thoughts and ideas of the future back to the present; she talks about how her mother shares a parent plus loan, and that she fears not only for her own financial security, but her mother’s as well. Eddy ends her story by stating that her dilemma is not one that was made through bad choices, and yet it is an issue that is affecting millions of Americans, and that $1.5 trillion of student debt is an issue that needs a solution.