Henningfeld is a professor of literature at Adrian College who writes on literary topics for a variety of publications. In this essay, Henningfeld considers the roles of sleep and snow in Ann Beattie's "Imagined Scenes."

Ann Beattie's 1974 short story, "Imagined Scenes," contains many of the elements of a typical Beattie story: photographs, postcards, and plants. In addition, as in most Beattie stories, the narrator is a woman, the situation is a marriage, and the tense is present. It is likely that these characteristics have caused critics and reviewers alike largely to overlook this story.

Yet even among those critics who choose to treat the story, there seems to be some level of discomfort with just what is going on in the text. Christina Murphy, for example, while applauding the general ambiguity and inconclusivity of Beattie's fiction, nevertheless seems to want to fix the details and meaning of...