Running on Empty - Robert Phillips the Term Paper

Total Length: 420 words ( 1 double-spaced pages)

Total Sources: 1+

Running on Empty - Robert Phillips

The reader suspects upon consuming the first six lines of the poem that the speaker was a typical rebellious teenager. One, his father was not eager for him to have the car, suggesting he wasn't dependable. Two, with the fuel gauge "dipping, dipping..." he was playing your basic "chicken" game (albeit with himself, rather than with another teenager). Teenagers hang out together, so it's a sign that he was a loner. Or, just plain reckless, which teenagers are, since they have little experience from which to learn real fear. And it's a universal given that teens do anything to avoid following specific parental directions, like "Always keep the tank half full." And so our speaker not only allowed the gauge to go under half full - he pushed the envelope to "fumes" in the tank, and in life.

It appears in lines 7 through 16 that perhaps all he had in the world was this vehicle to prove his fledgling manhood.

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Perhaps he failed at athletics, or at academics, or failed at love. Why? Perhaps because he desires to succeed at something hitherto undone: push harder on the pedal - and on his luck - than others would / could do. But suspicion of….....

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"Running On Empty - Robert Phillips The", 27 January 2003, Accessed.1 July. 2025,
https://www.aceyourpaper.com/essays/running-empty-robert-phillips-142949