What Do Fish Have to Do with Anything?

What Do Fish Have to Do with Anything?: Short story by Edward Wortis (aka Avi)The major theme of this story from Edward Wortis (aka Avi) is closed-mindedness. A struggling single mother still treats her sixth-grader son, Willie, as a young child. She is so preoccupied with her troubles that she doesn’t realize he is now an adolescent. Through prejudice, she shuns a beggar on the street. When Willie asks how to cure the beggar’s unhappiness, her answer is money. The beggar’s answer is cryptic: “What a person needs is always more than they (other people) say.” By this, he means everyone’s situation is different; we need to “open our eyes” to understand their needs.

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The School

The School: Short story by Donald BarthelmeStrange things are happening in the school featured in this story by Donald Barthelme. First, all plants and animals in student projects die. Death seems to be everywhere when an adopted dog, sponsored Korean orphan, and higher than average numbers of parents pass on. Then, to cap it all off, two students are killed in an accident while playing on a building site. In order to experience renewal of life, students ask their teacher to demonstrate sex with his teaching assistant. But just as they kiss and things start to get interesting, something happens that makes the children cheer wildly.

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Girls at Play

Girls at Play: Short story by Celeste NgIn this confronting coming of age story by Celeste Ng three rebellious junior high school girls, ostracized by their peers because they come from the poor part of town, respond by playing a sex game with boys every recess. The girls are outsiders, and one day pause the game to befriend another outsider, a sweet, naïve new girl in town, and teach her teenage ways. To their horror, when other students tell the girl about their sex game, she insists on joining in. Themes include friendship, sexuality, social class, innocence, fitting in.

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Cheap at Half the Price

Cheap at Half the Price: Short story by Jeffrey ArcherThe questionable message of this story by Jeffrey Archer is expressed in the opening line: Women are naturally superior to men, and Consuela Rosenheim was no exception. The beautiful socialite is nearing the end of the third of the four or five marriages she is planning on to become independently wealthy. After searching for a birthday present, she has her heart set on a million pound diamond-and-ruby necklace. Knowing her husband’s weaknesses, she hatches a plan whereby the deluded man thinks he was clever enough to buy it for half the asking price. Themes include materialism, sexuality, manipulation, deception, infidelity.

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Wicked Girl

Wicked Girl: Short story by Isabel AllendeIn this story by Isabel Allende a solitary, prepubescent eleven-year-old tries to sexually arouse her mother’s secret lover. At first the soundly sleeping man responds but, when he wakes and realizes who it is, he violently casts her aside. After she is sent to a convent, the profoundly affected man develops an unhealthy attraction towards young girls. When they meet again fifteen years later, he begs forgiveness for having rejected her in the hope this will cure his poisoned mind. She is speechless, not remembering the event. Themes include solitariness/disconnection, sexuality, obsession, the power of passion, escape, resilience.

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Looking for a Rain-God

Looking for a Rain-God: Short story by Bessie HeadThis story by Botswanan writer Bessie Head deals with one of the world’s most terrible crimes. It takes place in Botswana’s “lonely lands” where families usually live a poor but contented life in harmony with nature. Every year, when village headmen proclaim the beginning of the cropping season, farming families relocate from the villages to their ploughing lands. We follow a family who, having endured six years of crippling drought, reach a point in the seventh year where they feel they must make a devastating decision: to all perish from starvation or sacrifice their children to a rain-god.

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The Shell Collector

The Shell Collector: Short story by Anthony DoerrIn this story by Anthony Doerr, the life of a blind shell expert living alone with his dog on an island off the coast of Kenya is thrown into chaos. The aging man becomes world famous when two people suffering from malaria are cured by the venom of a deadly cone snail. Ailing people from all over the world converge on his tiny island, causing him to lose his privacy, much of his collection, the life of his son, and almost his own life. Themes include isolation, the dangers and benefits of the natural world, media power, desperation, hope.

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The Death of Ivan Ilyich

The Death of Ivan Ilyich: Short story by Leo TolstoyThe major themes of this famous novella by Leo Tolstoy are the inevitability of death and the shallowness of Russia’s bourgeoisie. As Ivan Ilyich, a successful civil servant, faces an early, agonizing death he asks himself the inevitable question: How could that be, when I did everything [in life] properly? By bourgeoisie standards, his assessment is correct. However, by general social standards Ivan’s superficial, self-centered life lacked compassion, genuine connection, and spiritual meaning. As Ivan’s suffering strips away his delusions, he finds joy and redemption in death. Other themes: appearance and materialism, suffering, denial, isolation, acceptance and redemption.

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