Tag: Short Stories

The Idea of Winning and Losing

On By CADEN PIn Short StoriesLeave a comment

When reading “202 Checkmates” there is a clear sense of winning and losing in chess. From the dynamic of the daughter always losing to the father in chess. Because the father was always better than her in the game. As one plays a game they by time eventually get better and better. Also with help can make that process increase exponentially.

In the story the daughter meets a man at the park his name is Manny. He is an extraordinary chess player who was very good at chess. Who had beat the father three times in a row after the father had beaten the daughter. The daughter had never seen her father lose in chess before. It was a shocker to her seeing her father get obliterated by another because she always thought her father was amazing and couldn’t be beaten. As she still was learning the game she was taught that having one of the pawns make it fully to the other side can turn into a queen. Because when she played she always protected her queen more than her king. When the aim of the game is to go for the king not the queen. After she told how important that was it wasn’t till the 202nd the daughter and father played. That she found an opening to turn her pawn into a queen. But she also had the opportunity to checkmate her father with other pieces and finally win. But since she was transforming in real life she wanted the queen more than winning. And she felt accomplished by turning the pawn into a queen more than beating her father. It wasn’t about winning or losing because she was able to do what she wanted to have done and that was good enough for her.

The Shift of Power in “The Secret Woman”

On By Jhaden J.In Power and Identity1 Comment

Sidonie-Gabrielle Colette’s short story “The Secret Woman” tells the story of how dishonesty between a husband and wife can lead to a shift in power because of a shift in perception. In the opening of this story we see the husband lying to his wife explaining that he is unable to go to the green and purple ball because of a patient he has to take care of. In response the wife tells her lie, telling him that she is too shy to be able to go to the ball and put herself in front of a group of people. This promotes the idea that she lacks courage and depends on him, seeing this in the way she made her husband think that she was against the idea of the party.

“As for me.. Can you see me in a crowd, at the mercy of all those hands..” (Pg. 328).

Despite their lies they end up at the ball, just not together. When he first sees his wife he doesn’t think that it’s her, under the impression that she wouldn’t be there. Once he realizes that it is in fact his wife he follows her and notices the way she is projecting herself, surprised, rolling her hips and dragging her feet. Once following his wife, we see that he looks at her more of an object that her own person.

Once seeing his wife for who she truly was, flirtatious, secretive or promiscuous, the way he described her shifted.

“She laughed, and he admired her narrow face, pink, matt and long, like a delicate sugared almond…” (Pg. 327).

This quote shows the way the man viewed his wife in the beginning but once he saw that she was actively choosing this for herself the way he saw her shifted, shown by the stark contrast in how she was described in the end.

“[T]he monstrous pleasure of being alone, free, honest in her crude, native state, of being the unknown woman, eternally solitary and shameless, restored to her irremediable solitude and immodest innocence by a little mask and a concealing costume” (Pg. 331).

Her freedom was shocking to him because of who he thought he had known her to be, once he saw that she was in power of her own situation, her own person, he didn’t really know how to deal with it. In the end I think he may have felt unsure of himself in the end, now seeing her at this party he wasn’t sure of his role in their relationship anymore, because he realized his role was always fake and apart of her lies.

Manley Pointer is a Very Smart Kim

On By NATE FIn Short Stories, UncategorizedLeave a comment

The fake bible salesman who goes by Manley Pointer in Good Country People shows a lot of similarities to Kim, Brian’s stalker ex-girlfriend, in  A Conversation About Bread. To begin, Pointer is a little bit of a stalker himself. He has gathered information about the Hopewell family somehow. He even tells Mrs. Hopewell “you’re a good woman. Friends have told me” (4). Like Kim, Manley seems to have been stalking this family to learn information about them to manipulate Hulga. This is seen when he talks about having a heart condition and only a few years to live. He only lies about this because it gives him something in common with Hulga, who is in that exact situation. Another more important similarity is the fact that they were only interested in Brian and Hulga because of their disabilities. This is seen when at the end Manley reveals himself and mentions “One time I got a woman’s glass eye this way” (9). This shows that like Kim, Manley is interested in people with disabilities only because of their disabilities. Even worse, he connects the objects that they need to help them function by stealing from them. So while Kim was a stalker, Manley is a stalker and a thief.

What this all shows about Manely and Kim is that their characters are not able to mutually recognize other people. They both push the power dynamic of ABLE/disabled because they do not see those different from them as equals. As a result of seeing Hulga and Brian as less than them they do awful things like stalking and theft of things that they need. These two characters serve as examples of what not to do. If Kim and Manely had the ability to mutually recognize others these stories would be very different.

Abnesti’s Prison

On By MCKALE TIn Short StoriesLeave a comment

Abnesti’s interactions with the patients provided another layer of complexity in Escape from Spider Head. Throughout the story when speaking with his patients Abnesti highlights his acts of kindness, especially when he is committing an act that seems inhumane and heartless. It can be concluded that for Jeff, Spiderhead represents his mental prison of guilt. For Abnesti, I think that Spiderhead represents his mental prison which stems from his inability to sympathize with others. On page 72, in regards to Heather’s death, Abnesti says, “I hated it. I’m a person. I have feelings.” Then later on page 73, he contradicts this statement with an emotionless and factual response to Jeff when Jeff asks if Rachel could die. Abnesti says, “Is it possible that the Darkenfloxx will kill Rachel? Sure. We have the Heather precedent.” This juxtaposition is used often in the story, and it emphasizes Abnesti’s use of manipulation to cover up his emotional downfalls. He is trapped in his commitment to “the mandates of science”(74). Abnesti cannot see the prisoners as people because of his own mental prison within Spider Head.

A Search for an Elephant and a Deeper Meaning

On By Grace SIn Short Stories1 Comment

The ending of the Elephant Vanishes left me unsettled. I do not believe that the elephant simply vanished however, Haruki Murakami did not leave us with much to interpret. While I read this story I was continuously on the search for a deeper meaning. Since there was no satisfying ending I tried to look for something that would put me at ease.

I think one of the main themes in this story is balance. The author brings it up in two ways, the size of the elephant and the keeper at the end of the story and in the narrator’s life.

Balance also plays a role at the end when the keeper and elephant are described as being the same size. Physically they are balanced because they are the same size. I think this balance helps the elephant and keeper achieve mutual recognition. Aside from being balanced physically they have a relationship different than most that allows them to think of each other differently. The narrator almost describes this as an intimate relationship where they are able to communicate with each other on a different level. The keeper does not believe that he is superior to the elephant and ending the story with them as the same size reduces the differences between them leading them to mutual recognition.

The narrator’s life is all about balance. His profession is selling kitchens and his sales pitch is about how they need to be balanced. He goes to work, reads the entire newspaper, and observes the elephant. The elephant vanishing brings excitement to his life and becomes all he can think about. Someone in my class mentioned that in Japanese culture everyone wants to fit in. You want to conform instead of sticking out.

Since I was searching for a deeper meaning I think this is an interesting point. The author may be attempting to relate this to society and the desire to fit in. This story is not like any other story that I have read, an elephant vanishing into thin air is a pretty dramatic and unique event to occur and story to write about. With that in mind I think that it is very important that the author made the narrator’s life so consistent because he represents society and the elephant represents breaking out from the conformities of society. Although Murakami may have intended for the story to simply be about a vanishing elephant, this is a much more satisfying ending.

Like Kerosene in His Veins

On By YASMIN PIn Short StoriesLeave a comment

Throughout the short story “Barn Burning”, the protagonist, Sarty, is faced with what seems to be an impossible conflict; how deep does blood really run? Saddled with an abusive father, he is constantly put into a position where he questions if staying true to his roots is the right decision. Rather early on in the story, after Abner strikes Sarty, he states, “You got to learn to stick to your own blood or you ain’t going to have no blood to stick to”. This exchange emphasizes the importance Abner hold regarding relation by blood. It also encompasses their father/son relationship quite accurately.

Due to the fact that this moral has been instilled in him for so long, Sarty feels a sense of responsibility towards his father. Even when mistreated, he chose to be compliant no matter how intensely his subconscious attempted to persuade him otherwise. A good example of this can be found on page 117 of the packet-155 of the story, where it states, “I could keep on, he thought. I could run on and on and never look back, never need to see his face again. Only I can’t. I can’t,“. The powerlessness he faces is common place even in modern society. For a story written so long ago, it amazes me that many of the themes still occur within our generations. What does this say about how we have progressed, or regressed, as a society?