Essay Test: A parable about allegories

The Anatomy of Melancholy

The following essay was submitted with the title 500 word essay/allegory. It is exactly 500 words.

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I

Oedie knew he was still there. He of the stained teeth, he of the scarred fingertips, he of the tall tales. It’s not as if he were hiding.

The knob, no doubt shined recently and thoroughly by Beatrice’s maidly cotton cloth, was warm. Or it least it felt that way when her damp hand turned right. Not a click but a soft squish of bolt opening.

No cobwebs. No creak of the stairs. No eerie imagined film score as she stepped up. At the top she felt the small panel and its cold metal. She indexed her finger flick and the halogens snapped.

There he was. Unmoved. Same as ever, even after a year. She had to decide what piece of him would be worth operating on. Should she rely on luck or fate? She remembered what Niels Bohr said about the horseshoe.

She thought she smelled stinkbugs but everything looked clean,. North by northwest she smiled the words out. She bent down, touched him softly, not quite a caress, but first with the front of her fingers, then slowly with the back, her nails, freshly and Frenchly manicured, drawing slow swirls, a sad dance, a wave hello instead of the sign language last word of a drowning Ophelia. She lifted the lid of the box and his dead man’s hand had left a letter.

II

My dearest Oedipa, First, an apology. I thought a name would be destiny, but I was wrong. It isn’t the Tristero. And then I thought it might be contained in forking paths or the library of Babel (I hope you’ve sold all those damn books by now). It wasn’t Kafka’s parables either, although the law won, as we both know. And then I thought it was in dark matter, and then the carefully crafted genetic engineering experiments, but you know how that turned out too. And then multiverses. All of them so wrong.

But I did find it and now you have too. It is underneath this sickly scrawl. You have a choice to make. You can close me up again and walk away or you can lift the winding sheet to see. The time between us is too great for me to guess what you will do. But you have a choice for once. Or so I think you do. Maybe you do too. I love you now and always have, despite many many failures. Fathers are full of them, but forgiveness is not what  I seek or expect. The Herakleitan river is wide and deep. These words are wet and dangerous I know, but then you already know this and you already know me. Love, Dad.

She didn’t hesitate. She lifted the winding sheet immediately. It was a sheepskin parchment, ages old, it seemed. It looked as if it had been culled from some manuscript. It was perfect and empty.

At the bottom of the parchment was an equally aged quill pen. She knew it been pulled from a black swan.

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Questions: 

Is this an effective piece of writing? Why or why not?

Is it fiction or creative non-fiction? How do you know? Does it make a difference?

What character traits could you extrapolate about the writer of this text?

Would you advise this person to submit this essay to colleges and universities? Why or why not?

Do colleges and universities still value creativity in admission essays? If yes, how do you know?

Should teachers and counselors encourage students to take creative risks in essays? If yes, do have any support for why you would encourage this?

Do you think it is a good change that an essay like this could never be submitted next year under the new questions put out by the Common Application?