Short Story Reading

Initial Feelings

Summary

The narrator is a young boy whose parents are divorced. This is the first time that he has seen his father in three years. However, he is unable to enjoy lunch with his father due to his father’s cocky and disrespectful attitude. Every restaurant they went to his father treated the waiter and waitresses like slaves with absolutely no respect. Therefore, they went from restaurant to restaurant until the boy had to board his train. The boy leaves and never sees his father again.

Motifs

The author uses the motif of verbal disrespect to represent disappointment and a waste of time. The narrator’s father is disrespectful to every worker at every restaurant and ultimately wastes the little time that he gets to spend with his son, who was extremely excited to see him.

Themes

The main theme in the short story is disappointment. The narrator is extremely excited to spend time with his father after not seeing him for three years. He wants to cherish the limited time that they have together; however, his father’s disrespect and aragonite end up forcing them to go from restaurant to restaurant wasting time. In the end, the narrator leaves his father disappointed, since he was unable to spend quality time with him.

Critical Paradigm

This short story can be looked at through the moral-philosophical paradigm. The father is disrespectful and cocky which prevents his son from spending quality time with him. This paradigm teaches the reader to treat others with respect at all times, despite what role one may be in society.

Rating

8.5/10

Initial Feeling

Summary

The short story consists of multiple scenarios and outcomes for people who fall in love. These scenarios involve mutual interest, one-sided interest as well as falling out of love.

Motifs

A motif in the short story is loyalty. Throughout each of the scenarios, the relationships that end well are the ones that have both partners being loyal to one another with mutual interest. The relationships that are one-sided with a lack of loyalty ultimately end in disaster.

Themes

The theme of the short story is true love. Many of the scenarios consist of one partner using their significant other for either sexual pleasure or for a certain ability they have such as cooking. When there is mutual interest and love between two people their relationship not only goes much smoother but lasts to the point where they grow old together happily.

Critical Paradigm

This short story can be viewed through the moral-philosophical paradigm. If feelings are not genuine and mutual the relationship will not be healthy and ever-lasting. Furthermore, it teaches the reader to only enter relationships that interest is truly mutual, or it will end in disaster and a waste of time and effort.

Rating

7/10

Initial Feeling

Summary

This short story involves two main characters, the narrator and an elderly man. The narrator is disturbed by one of the elderly man’s eyes and thus plans to murder him. He strategically plans his actions for many days in order to find the best way to complete his plan of killing the old man. Eventually, he sneaks into the old man’s room and kills him in the middle of the night. He then precedes to hide the body. His neighbour hears the old man’s cry and calls the police. When the police arrive the narrator at first seems like he is calm and collected, but suddenly breaks down when he hears a heart beating and confesses his act.

Motifs

The motifs in the story are the old man’s eye and the sound of the beating heart. The old man’s eye that scares the narrator represents that he is always being watched. The beating heart represents guilt and truth, this can be seen when the feeling of guilt overcomes the narrator and he begins to hear the sound of a beating heart when being interrogated.

Themes

The themes of fear, murder and guilt are present in the story. The emphasis of the dark setting relates to the theme of fear. The narrator’s desire and plan to kill the old man reflect the theme of murder. The theme of guilt is expressed through the motif of the beating heart since the beating heart represents inner guilt and the sound of the heart is what causes the narrator to confess.

Critical Paradigm

This short story can be looked at through the moral-philosophical paradigm. This story reveals how people are accountable for their own actions and decisions. Despite how well the action is hidden, the action still occurred and thus will be revealed at a certain point in time.

Rating

9.5/10