the pugilist at rest

            
             The Encarta dictionary defines the word "title- as: a descriptive heading for something that identifies a book, movie, play, painting, musical composition, or other literary or artistic work. The title of any story creatively describes the significance of the particular story in a phrase or a word. In The Pugilist at Rest, Thom Jones creates a collection of different stories in which he provides a fictional world for the reader. In the stories "the Black Lights,"" "Wipe Out,"" and "Mosquitoes,"" Jones gives the titles compound meanings, which lead the reader to understand their usage. In "the Black Lights,"" Jones depicts a war veteran placed in a psychiatric ward at Camp Pendleton, where the veteran claims to only have epilepsy, while picturing rabbits under his bed at night. In "Wipe Out,"" Jones describes an arrogant middle-aged man, who tells the reader of his different relationships with women and how he feels about women. Jones creates another scenario in "Mosquitoes,"" in which another middle-aged man visits his brother's family in Vermont, and depicts their lifestyle and each member of the family. In Thom Jones, The Pugilist at Rest, a collection of short stories, various titles contain multiple meanings throughout the stories, which indirectly describe their general theme. .
             The title "Black Lights,"" illustrates an indirect throughout the short story, which ultimately describe the story's theme. The narrator of the short story first uses black lights to express the reason for being put into the psychiatric ward: "I had seen stars before from big punches; I had seen pinwheels; but after that shot to the temple I saw the worst thing you ever see in boxing "I saw the black lights- (66). He explains that his placement into the psychiatric ward was due to a hard punch, which he took during a boxing match. This punch led to loss of weight, headaches, and eventually epilepsy.