Today we have another classic horror story from W. W. Jacobs. Four young travelers are drinking (tea of all things!) at an Inn. They are discussing the supernatural, and it soon becomes clear that three are believers to varying degrees and one is a total skeptic. One of them tells a story about a nearby haunted house that takes a “toll” of at least one life from every family or group that lives there—however short the time. Foolishly, they decide to put the story to the test. Themes: bravado, fear, the supernatural. More…
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A Lifestyle
In this story by Fernando Sorrentino a man relates how being trapped inside his tenth-floor apartment after his key broke off in the lock changed his life. After being refused service and black-listed by the Argentine Locksmiths’ Union, he looks for help elsewhere. He phones the building janitor, his girlfriend and co-workers, and even drops pamphlets to pedestrians on the street below. No one is willing to assist. When his telephone, power and water are cut off, the innovative man develops a thriving farm in his apartment. Themes include resourcefulness, self-sufficiency, isolation, the apathy and redundancy of urban lifestyles. More…
Cat in the Rain
On the surface, this story by Ernest Hemingway is a simple tale about a couple spending a rainy afternoon in a hotel room during an Italian holiday. The woman feels pity for a cat trying to stay dry under an outside table. Readers often interpret this as a symbol of the woman feeling trapped in an empty relationship. Possible causes include a lack of mutual love and respect, incompatibility, and the woman’s childishness and greed. Themes include the aftermath of war, kindness, communication breakdown, isolation and loneliness, boredom and disappointment, gender roles and femininity, dissatisfaction and unfulfilled desires. More…
Dusk
James Salter’s Dusk is about the loneliness of reaching middle age and finding yourself alone in the world. Mrs Chandler is a cultured woman who once led an active social life. The narrator describes her as a fine woman whom no one now wanted. Her only son is dead, her other children have moved on, her husband has left her, and her lover is reuniting with his wife. It is hunting season, and she identifies with the wild geese being shot for sport: The rain was coming down, the sea was crashing, a comrade lay dead in the whirling darkness. More…
Women in Their Beds
Gina Berriault’s protagonist is a struggling young actress who has just begun a day job as a social worker in the women’s ward of a city hospital. With no qualifications or experience, she finds it hard to maintain clinical detachment and begins to identify with the suffering, often troubled women in the ward. She reflects on turning points in her own life, and concludes that women are shaped by the beds (a metaphor for common life experiences) they have chosen, or someone else has chosen for them, to lie in. Themes: empathy, choice vs. superstition/destiny, identity, aloneness, connection. More…