On a superficial level, the speckled dog in Julia Alvarez’s Liberty symbolizes the freedom the protagonist’s family are looking forward to in America, and the freedom the girl hopes to find in her own country when she returns. On another level, it could symbolize the American consul: a seemingly ordinary person who causes trouble. Darker themes include implied American involvement in covert actions against her country’s government, the surveillance and atmosphere of fear that builds throughout, and the fact that the family’s freedom requires a sacrifice… turning their beloved dog loose to fend for itself. More…
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Heavy-Set
Ray Bradbury‘s character Lenny (Leonard) lives at home with his mother and has a lot going for him. He has a body-builder’s physique, secure job, nice car, and no shortage of girls wanting to go out with him. Unfortunately, he is also mentally and socially challenged. He doesn’t take disappointment or ridicule well, often barely able to control his temper. The story takes place over a Halloween night. Lenny is excited, but the party he was looking forward to is a flop, leading to a potentially explosive homecoming. Themes include alienation, repression, interdependence, arrested development, fitting in, fear, despair. More…
Grandfather’s Story
This two-part story by Catherine Lim begins with the background of the narrator’s grandparents. We learn that the grandfather, unable to live with his wife who cruelly exploited bondmaids (female slaves) in growing a successful garment business, found lifetime love with another woman. In the second part of the story, the grandfather relates a folktale-like account of how the fates of all three were predestined a thousand years previously when the Almighty passed judgement on a Chinese farmer, his good-hearted but naïve wife, and a cruel, mercenary nun. Themes include love, cruelty, slavery, greed, fate, rebirth and karmic justice. More…
Markheim
The central themes of this Robert Louis Stevenson classic are self-awareness and the nature of good and evil. Markheim, a hitherto petty thief, “steps up” in the criminal world by murdering an antique dealer. It is Christmas day, the dealer’s shop is closed, and his maid has gone out. As Markheim searches the house looking for money, a mysterious stranger appears. Believing him to be the Devil, Markheim must choose between accepting the stranger’s offer of help and killing the returning maid, or paying the supreme price for his crime. Other themes: poverty, crime and punishment, death, redemption, the supernatural. More…
The Romance of a Busy Broker
This humorous but unlikely story by O. Henry is set in the office of Harvey Maxwell, a busy New York stockbroker, over the space of a single morning. When Harvey sits down at his desk, it is as if he changes from a man into a machine. He puts everything else out of his mind. It is a bad day on the stock market and, when things get quieter at lunchtime, he realizes that he has forgotten something more important than making money. Themes include the pressure of ‘modern’ business, love, preoccupation, workplace conflict, gender roles. More…