This story from Anita Desai highlights what children did in the evening before the electronic age: played together outside! Although set in India, it could have taken place almost anywhere in the world. A sensitive young boy playing ‘tag’ with his siblings courageously hides out in a dark and threatening shed. He loses track of time and is shattered when he emerges to claim the glory and finds the other children have forgotten about him and moved on. Major theme: the disillusionment that comes with confronting your potential insignificance in the world. Other themes: identity, fear, courage, expectation, disappointment, humiliation. More…
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The Storm / At the ‘Cadian Ball
Kate Chopin’s The Storm is widely considered one of her best stories. As a wild storm rages outside, a farmer’s wife (Calixta) and wealthy plantation-owner who had stopped for shelter (Alcée) engage in wild, stormy sex inside. Although both are married, neither feels guilty about the tryst. Afterwards, Calixta continues family life as normal, though seemingly more contented. Themes: family, passionless marriage, lust. In order to fully understand the characters, it is helpful to read the story’s prequel, At the ‘Cadian Ball. Calixta and Alcée were once infatuated with each other, but class and race differences kept them apart. More…
Jeffty is Five
This story by Harlan Ellison is said to be an allegory of the power of childlike fantasy. The protagonist’s childhood friend remains “frozen in time”. As those around him age, the boy retains the body and mind of a five-year-old. Things get stranger when the protagonist discovers the boy is also living in the past. He tunes into new episodes of long discontinued radio shows, “sees” old movies when watching modern ones, and receives products from mail-order companies that no longer exist. Themes include childhood, friendship, nostalgia, past vs. present, desperation, the supernatural. More…
Dead Stars
This story by Paz Marquez Benitez is set in a culture and time where honor outweighs love. A young lawyer delays marrying his fiancé for three years because it doesn’t feel right. Although he falls in love with another, he keeps his word, marries the fiancé, and dreams of the other woman for eight years. He likens the dreams to seeing the light of dead stars, long extinguished, yet seemingly still in their appointed places in the heavens. When he sees the other woman again, the light has gone out. Themes: courtship, fidelity, forbidden love, honor, regret, understanding. More…
Clean Sweep
The main theme of this story from Jane Bauer is how seemingly insignificant objects from one’s past can spark powerful (and in this case healing) memories. It also contrasts two families: one brought closer through tragedy and the need to work together to secure their future, the other torn apart by misunderstanding and bitterness and too stubborn to make the first move. In the latter case, a child’s book that brings a stony-faced old woman to tears and simple phone call are all it takes to restore relationships. Other themes: loss, memories, family connections, aging and loneliness, estrangement and reconciliation. More…