summary of the 5 short stories

Ana Julia Pestana Ana Jules [email protected]

Samuel by Grace Paley

(p. 46 – 55)

- The names of the characters are: Alfred, Calvin, Samuel, and Tom.

- The story of “Samuel” is located on a subway, where a wide range of people meet.

- The rails are underground in most of Manhattan but in the Bronx they are elevated.

- Because of the fact that the kids are young, naïve and immature they don’t realize

the dangers of doing certain things. The consequence of this ends up killing Samuel

who, driven by the excitement of the moment, lets go off the chain that maintained

him alive.

- Moreover, the mention of three Negroes “[…] But three of the boys were Negroes

and the fourth was something else she [the lady] couldn’t tell for sure. […]” and the

mention of a chain “[…] Samuel had let go of his hold on the chain […]” make

reference to the social situation where the story is settled, which is in the days

where African people emmigrated to the United States of America.

Because of the situation where the story is placed, it could be said that Samuel was

trying to include black people in the society of the white ones. This gives a bad

impression on the point of view of the author since it shows that coloured people

don’t know how to behave; this can be clearly seen where it says (refering to a man

that, by seeing these kids playing unconsciously, remembers his past times): “[…]

Then he walked in a citizenly way to the end of the car, where he pulled the

emergency cord. […]”; of course, this action that this man had caused the future

death of Samuel since the train stopped abruptly.


The Chaser by John Collier

(p. 58 – 63)

- The name of the main character is Alan Austen. There is also an old man that

appears in the story which we don’t know his name.

Alan is in love of Diana, she doesn’t correspond his love (we can suppose that the

reason for this is that he feels the kind of strong love that one feels at a young age

and that she may be more mature than him).

- “[…] Young people who need a love potion very seldom have five thousand dollars.

Otherwise they would not need a love poton. […]” .

By saying this, the old man shows that he knows that those who have

money very rarely are searching for love.

- Near the end of the story, the old man lets Alan know all the things that will happen

to the woman. This, is nothing more than the mere definition of what ever man

expects of the perfect woman. What the kid doesn’t know is that this has chances of

not happening since the old man is just selling a product and wants to create

customers.


Love by Jesse Stuart

(p. 84 – 91)

- “[…] Stuart names specific plants and tools and animals to present the harsh reality

and great beauty of an Appalachian hill-country farm. […]”.

- The main characters are: Bob (the Collie), the father and his son.

- One of the meanings of the presence of the snake in the story is the dualism. This

can be seen between the father and his son (or daughter, since we don’t know the

gender) when the son tells his father not to kill the snake giving fundaments of why

it is of no use to kill it and all the good that the snake could bring to the corn field of

his father. As for the father, he thinks that all snakes are bad creatures without

taking into consideration the words of his son and he maintains his ignorant posture

by saying “[…] ‘A snake is an enemy to me,’ […] ‘I hate a snake.’ […]”.

- Moreover, the author makes reference to what the right definition of true love is by

clearly explaining the efforts of a bull blacksnake to mate with his female and,

remaining by her side even after the dog killed her. The author explains this by the

use of a figure of speech called “Personification”, which is shown below.

A reference to this is the following: “[…] The male snake had trailed

her to her doom. He had come in the night, under the roof of stars, as

the moon shed rays of light on the quivering clouds of green. He had

found his lover dead. He was coiled beside her, and she was dead.

[…]”


The Use of Force by William Carlos Williams

(p. 94 – 103)

- The characters are: the father and mother, Mathilda Olsen (daughter of the two

parents) and a doctor.

- This story clearly shows the struggle between a child and a doctor when trying to

take a sample of the throat to cure her and the immature attitude of not getting

involved in such situation even when they both know that it is best to force the child

to stay still instead of spoiling her.

The Lottery by Shirley Jackson

(p. 106 – 122)

- The characters are:

Tessie Hutchinson: the unlucky of the lottery. She always blames that

the lottery is unfair because nobody gets to win even her when she

got the marked paper but didn’t win because of the society that was

manly.

Bill Hutchinson: Tessie’s husband. Took a blank paper but wants to

prove that his wife had the marked paper.

Mr. Harry Graves: the postmaster. Assisstant of Mr. Summers.

Old Man Warner: the oldest man in the village. Participated in

seventy-seven (77) lotteries and who believes that the lottery keeps

people from returning to a barbaric state.

Mr. Summers: the man who conducts the lottery. The childless owner

of a coal company, one of the village leaders.

- The mention of the women appearing behind their men is a clearly hint that the

women were still under surveillance of their husbands without being able of acting

free.


Quote: “[…] The women, wearing faded house dresses and sweaters,

came shortly after their menfolk. […]”

- Duality between Mr. Summers and Mr. Graves.

Mr. Summers:

Happy.

Friendly.

(Hot temperature, excitement, love, passion, etc.) – Describe

everything in a positive way regarding (respect to) this

character.

Mr. Graves:

Death.

Silence.

(Cold temperature, deadly things, etc.) – We can say that he

was the one responsible to take the dead bodies after the

lottery was finished (after everyone finishes killing the person

who got the black coal dot, that was made on a white sheet –

duality between purity and impurity).

- It could be said that the story takes place in Summer, in a village where there is not

much life apart from the 300 citizens that breed quite fast (it makes reference to the

77 years of the time that the lottery had at the time of the story).

- Due to the big amount of citizens and the idea of Mr. Summers to take control of the

place, they continue for 77 years making the lottery which, it has as a final price,

the death of the one who took the paper with the black coal-made mark on the white

paper (white = Peace; black = death.)

- Tessie thinks it’s unfair because she took the marked paper and she has two sons to

take care of. Since it is a manly society nobody fights against her unfair death (not

even her husband).

- The short story is called "The Lottery" because, in life, living is a lottery, since one

can die at any moment without minding the circumstances. (In this point, one can

say almost anything).

summary of the 5 short stories

Documents