This coming-of-age story from Judith Ortiz Cofer describes the interaction between a teenage girl working a summer job in a swimming pool kiosk and Valentin, her thirty-year-old mentally challenged male assistant. Valentin is nervous and clumsy, creating chaos whenever he tries to help. Fortunately, his rubber-band “art” animals keep him occupied. She would rather work alone and have more time to flirt with the muscular young lifeguard and talk with friends. Things change when the lifeguard “goes missing” and the girl and Valentin rescue a small child who nearly drowns. Themes: inclusion, patience, acceptance, friendship, courage, responsibility. More…
The True Story of Kanakapala, Protector of Gold
This “story within a story” from Raja Rao reads more like a reinterpreted folktale than a work of fiction. The unidentified narrator repeats a tale related by an old woman that includes elements of oral history, personal observation/interpretation, and gossip. The major themes of her story, which spans three generations, include piety, devotion, duty, greed, karma and the supernatural. The “glue” holding the story together is Kanakapala, a huge cobra that guarded a buried treasure bestowed upon Lord Shiva and the goddess Vishalakshi. Kanakapala literally “met its end” when its powers proved ineffective against rogue descendants of the treasure’s donor. More…
Absalom’s Hair
In this story by Bjørnstjerne Bjørnson, friends and family are dismayed when an intelligent, independent twenty-one-year-old woman marries a dominant, sixty-year-old recluse. When she tries to leave, he cruelly confines her and their one-year-old son to his seaside estate. On his death, she moves with the then twelve-year-old boy to England and spends the next ten years trying to control every aspect of his life, including separating him from any girl/woman he shows interest in. His love/hate relationship with her almost destroys his life. Themes include power and control, the struggle for independence, vulnerability, desire, societal norms, mother-son relationships. More…
Mrs. Spring Fragrance
This story by Sui Sin Far explores the “Americanization” of Chinese immigrant families in the early 1900s. A Chinese-American woman (Mrs. Spring Fragrance) helps her neighbor’s daughter escape an arranged marriage so that she can marry her true love. Thanks to a misunderstanding over a line of poetry, when she travels to another city to find a suitable match for the other man, her husband suspects she is having an affair with him. Through extensive use of irony, the story highlights themes of jealousy, culture clash, identity, gender roles, and community and political racism and discrimination. More…
Barn Burning
Barn Burning by William Faulkner is a story of how a ten-year-old boy rises above the intimidation and bullying of his embittered father. The father’s simmering anger stems from jealousy and lack of respect, fueled by an exploitative sharecropping system that keeps tenant families like his in perpetual poverty. He seeks retribution through senseless acts of arson (barn burning) against landholders he believes have slighted him. The boy, sensing the immorality of his father’s actions, has the courage to rebel and do something about it. Themes: family, class, alienation, exploitation, pride, anger, revenge, loyalty vs. morality, courage, betrayal. More…