Sometimes the twist in a story is not immediately evident to readers from other cultures. In this story by Banaphool, an Indian insurance agent returning home from an unsuccessful sales trip encounters four strangers in his train compartment. He does his best to sell them a policy until a fifth with a “trunked head” emerges from a top bunk. He then realizes his fellow passengers are important Hindu gods traveling to the upcoming Durga Puja festival. Despite this, he is still able to make a sale. Themes include resilience, embarrassment, persistence, success. More…
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The Gold of Tomás Vargas
Isabel Allende’s Tomás Vargas is a lecherous, wife-beating, boastful drunkard. At a time when paper money has lost its value, he is wealthy thanks to gold he buried in better times. He enjoys a luxurious, self-indulgent “macho” lifestyle as his wife and children live in poverty. To add to his family’s misery, he brings his pregnant mistress home to live with them. In addition to Vargas’s wife, the “heroes” of the story are the shop-keeper (Riad) and school-teacher (Inés), who take pity on and try to help the women. Themes include greed, cruelty, morality, dignity, compassion, responsibility, and karma. More…
Roselily
In this story by Alice Walker, a woman daydreams through her wedding ceremony about how her life is about to change. She is not sure if she is in love with the man, and is marrying him primarily for the sake of her young children from previous relationships. Although both are African-American, their future faces significant challenges. She is from the rural South, he is from Chicago; she is Christian, he is Muslim. She reconciles herself to a life of ropes, chains and handcuffs away from family and friends. Themes include alienation, loneliness, motherhood, compatibility, religion, change and hope. More…
The Flying Machine
In this story by Ray Bradbury, a Chinese Emperor learns that one of his subjects has invented a “flying machine”. Thinking that the invention could be used against him if the “technology” fell into the wrong hands, he has the man executed, the kite destroyed, and the whole episode hushed up. Written shortly after the end of World War II, by which time the Soviets had already replicated America’s atomic bomb, the story could be considered a parable warning of the risk of developing weapons of mass destruction. Themes include the potential danger of technology, fear of progress, shortsightedness, selfishness/control. More…
Leaving the Yellow House
In this depressing but captivating story by Saul Bellow, a seventy-two-year-old woman reviews her life of lost opportunities after an accident threatens her ability to live independently in her off-the-grid Yellow House. A heavy drinker, she is portrayed as irresponsible, selfish, brash and demanding. With no close relatives and the six other eccentric white people in her isolated desert community tolerating rather than befriending her, she has no one to turn to and, more importantly, nobody “good enough” to bequeath her only treasure (the house) to. Themes include poverty, aging and death, identity, self-deception, alienation and isolation, disconnection, alcohol abuse. More…