This story by Yiyun Li highlights the helplessness of the working class in China’s race to modernity. A fifty-one-year-old spinster comes of age after being retrenched by a bankrupt garment factory. Her next two jobs involve “extras”, people who have been cast off by their family. First, as wife/carer to a dying old man; second, as a maid in a boarding school where she experiences love in a special friendship with a rejected six-year-old boy. In a fit of temper, the boy does something that sees her jobless again. . Themes include social change, compassion, abandonment, isolation, maternal love, survival. More…
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A&P
John Updike’s A&P reflects some common Middle American attitudes before the social upheavals of the 1960s. A supermarket employee (Sammy) resigns when three girls in swimsuits are rudely asked to leave the store. Themes include appearance, respect, sexuality, humiliation, class and choices. I don’t share the common interpretation that Sammy’s actions are heroic. The misogyny evident in his denigrating, sexist descriptions of the girls and cruel references to other customers suggest that he is not as righteous as he makes out. Would such a person really quit because of Lengel’s treatment of the girls, or could there be another reason? More…
The Doll’s House / The Washerwoman’s Children
Today we are featuring two stories from New Zealand: The Doll’s House by Katherine Mansfield and its sequel, The Washerwoman’s Children, written in celebration of Mansfield’s centenary by Maori writer Witi Ihimaera. In the first story, a family friend gives a magnificent doll’s house to the children of a well-to-do family. Their mother allows them to invite all but two of the girls at their school to come and see it. These girls (sisters) are shunned and teased by the other children because of their mother’s lowly job. Themes: imagination, class, prejudice, peer pressure, bullying, kindness. More…
New York Day Woman
Major themes of this Edwidge Danticat story are mother-daughter relationships and cultural identity. Out of curiosity, an Americanised Haitian woman secretly follows her mother through the streets of central Manhattan after coming across her window shopping in expensive stores. The mother’s presence in Manhattan and confidence in navigating the crowded streets is a surprise, as is her destination. Over the course of the afternoon the girl begins to see her mother in a different light, with annoyance over her retaining many Haitian ways of life giving way to respect and admiration. Other themes include love, sacrifice, tradition, assimilation, understanding. More…
The Chosen Vessel
This story by Barbara Baynton paints a graphic picture of the isolation and dangers faced by women living in ‘outback’ Australia during the 19th century. A ‘swagman’ traveling the countryside looking for work visits a woman on a farm whose husband is away. She does not like the way he looks at her, and locks herself and her baby in their house. The man is about to break in when they hear a horse rider coming. The woman runs outside and calls for help. However, when the horse rider hears and then sees her, he races away in fright. More…