Sometimes a short, simple children’s story can carry a powerful message for people of all ages. Adapted from an old fable by Carolyn Sherwin Bailey, this story is about a raindrop that sees a farmer in distress. His carefully tended crop of corn is beginning to wither and droop and, although the raindrop knows it cannot save the crop alone, it decides to bring the farmer a moment of happiness. Contrary to the raindrop’s expectation, this makes a big difference. The story shows how a single act of kindness can often motivate others to also do good. More…
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Day of the Butterfly
The themes of this distressing story from Alice Munro are being different, isolation, bullying, connection and betrayal. Myra’s family looks and dresses differently. At school, her introverted younger brother needs her constant support and protection. The other children in her class (always in groups of course!) ridicule her. For most of them, feigned acceptance comes when Myra is hospitalized with leukemia and it becomes fashionable to be seen to care. Sadly, a brief period of connection with the narrator ends with a decision to discard what may have been Myra’s last ever gift More…
The Budget
The major theme of this satirical tale by Mario Benedetti is the inefficiency of government bureaucracy and decision-making in 1940s Uruguay. A small government Office, which doesn’t seem to exist for any purpose, has operated within the same annual budget for decades. When its financially struggling staff hear rumours of an imminent budget increase, they go into debt and splurge on luxuries as if a salary increase had already been granted. A year later, as the paperwork weaves its way through the Ministerial approval process, the disillusioned employees are still waiting. Other themes include indolence, hope and disillusionment. More…
A Very Old Man With Enormous Wings
The major themes of this story by Gabriel García Márquez are doubt, cruelty and greed, and common reactions to those who appear strange or “different”. The treatment of the out of sorts angel and “spider girl” evoke genuine pathos and carry allusions to how some countries lock up refugees in miserable conditions and the likes of Joseph Merrick (the deformed gentleman paraded around 19th century England as The Elephant Man). The only uplifting moment comes when the innocent child climbs through a hole in the old man’s cage to play with him. Other themes include suffering, religion and the supernatural. 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…