The Voter
This story by Chinua Achebe uses irony to highlight vote-buying in Nigerian village elections. A sitting politician’s wealth and lifestyle have improved dramatically since being elected. To retain his place at the trough, he appoints a group of canvassers to bribe influential villagers. His most trusted canvasser faces a dilemma, He is offered an unheard-of bribe to vote for the opposition, provided he swears on a talisman that will bring ill-fortune if he doesn’t do so. He takes the money, and creatively finds a way to avoid being disloyal to either party. Themes include corruption, politics, vote-buying, superstition, loyalty.
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The theme of Mona Gardner’s The Dinner Party is gender stereotyping. The story is a satire of attitudes towards women in upper class colonial England. It begins with a debate over dinner between an army officer and young girl. The officer argues that men are better than women at staying calm during a crisis. The host’s wife proves him wrong by demonstrating nerves of steel when the guests are threatened by a deadly visitor. Although one of the other guests foreshadows the looming danger, the full extent of the woman’s courage is not evident until the final paragraph.
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