This story by Ernest Hemingway is aptly set at a railway junction. A couple waiting for a train have an important decision to make that will determine the direction of their lives. Unfortunately, they have reached a point in their relationship where they find it hard to open up and talk about their feelings. Although the man says he will leave it up to the woman, he puts subtle pressure on her to choose his way. Themes: perspective (male vs. female views on pregnancy and abortion), choices and consequences (freedom vs. family), language and communication (disconnection), dependence and control. More…
Wicked Girl
In 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. More…
The Sentimentalists
In this story by Morley Callaghan two young men, one a law student, are shopping in a department store when they notice a store detective watching three women at the stocking counter. There was a stout, well-dressed older woman, a lanky schoolgirl, and a demure “girl next door” type. They bet on which one the detective is watching and, after two move away, the lawyer moves in and saves the guilty party. Unfortunately, all he gets for his trouble is a kick in the shins. Themes include petty crime, stereotyping, desperation, hope, insensitivity, betrayal. More…
The Pagan Rabbi
This story from Cynthia Ozick is about a highly respected Jewish scholar who is driven to suicide as he tries to reconcile the strict tenets of his religion with the philosophical (pagan) concept of immortal “free souls” existing in Nature. This so affects the rabbi’s mind that his suicide note refers to several encounters with a dryad (wood nymph). Some of these are sexual, which he clumsily tries to rationalize with: Scripture does not forbid sodomy with the plants! Themes: Jewish identity; marriage and family; friendship; philosophy (search for meaning in Nature); death; sanity/suicide; (lack of) understanding and forgiveness. More…
Priscilla and the Wimps
In addition to this being Richard Peck’s first young adult story, it is one of his most popular. This is undoubtedly because it not only follows the age-old success formula of a victorious underdog, but does so in the context of humiliating a school bully. Another plus is that the denouement is left to the reader’s imagination. Does Pricilla come back later in the day to release Monk? Do her or Melvin’s parents phone the school and arrange for the locker to be opened? Or do they come back in a week’s time and find that Monk is an ice-block? More…