Samira Azzam is best known for her later stories presenting a Palestinian perspective on the violence associated with the creation of Israel. Her lesser-known earlier stories are marked by entertaining descriptions of pre-war Palestinian life and traditions. In Little Things, a lovestruck college student tries but fails to heed her parent’s advice to remain virtuous and “not be like other silly girls”. Themes include reputation, first love, sexuality, self-determination. In Tears for Sale, a professional mourner who doubles as a beautician for brides learns that grief is easier to fake than suffer. Themes include curiosity, death, grief, marriage, virtue. More…
Punishment
The central theme of this story by Rabindranath Tagore is the dehumanization of women under India’s patriarchal social structure. When a farmer murders his wife in a fit of rage, his brother asks his wife to take the blame, promising to testify that she did it in self-defence. In court she denies this, pleads guilty, and is sentenced to hang. For her, love and hope died when her husband asked her to lie and she saw death as preferable to a life of misery. Other themes include poverty, exploitation, jealousy, betrayal, the unpredictable consequences of a lie. More…
The Two Brothers and the Gold
In this story by Leo Tolstoy, two devout brothers who have dedicated their lives to helping the needy react very differently to finding a heap of gold. One leaps aside and runs away; the other takes it into town and puts it towards building and provisioning an asylum for widows and orphans, a hospital for the sick, and a hospice for the poor and pilgrims. Returning home penniless after basking in the praise of the townspeople, he is castigated by an Angel for allowing himself to be corrupted by the devil. Themes include religion, selflessness, brotherly love, temptation, hubris. More…
The Station
In this story by H. E. Bates, a stop at an all-night café run by an attractive young woman has a disturbing effect on an eighteen-year-old truck driver’s assistant. The young man is new to the job, and driver had warned him that he shouldn’t take any special attention by woman the wrong way: She won’t have it. She’s nice to (all) the chaps because it’s business, that’s all.. Despite this, the assistant is spellbound by the woman. She senses this and flirts a little, raising sexual tension in the naïve young man. Themes include innocence, female sexuality, desire. More…
Little Red Riding Hood
This time last year we featured Charles Perrault’s famous interpretation of an ancient folktale, Cinderella. Today we have another well-known Perrault story, Little Red Riding Hood. The version of the story most commonly told today is from a Brothers Grimm adaption known as Little Red Cap, published over 100 years after Perrault. In both versions, Red is punished for talking to strangers (the wolf) by being “eaten”. The Brothers extended the story to make it more appealing to children. In addition to Red and her grandmother miraculously surviving in the wolf’s stomach, they later meet and kill a second wolf. More…