Robert Olen Butler does not establish a setting at the start of “ Titanic Survivors Found in Bermuda Triangle”; nor does he establish who is talking. Instead, he starts the story with the narrator, whose name will much later be given as Margaret, telling her story, leaving the situation for the reader to piece together….
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A Silver Dish by Saul Bellow – Analysis
In a 1959 essay published in the New York Times called “The Search for Symbols, a Writer Warns, Misses All the Fun and Facts of the Story,” Saul Bellow takes literary critics to task for reading too deeply, asserting that close scrutiny can in fact be a threat to fiction. He presents a hypothetical situation:…
A Silver Dish by Saul Bellow – Setting
The Great Depression At the center of this story is Bellow’s description of the night when Woody and his father, who are both poor, travel from the south side of Chicago to the affluent suburb of Evanston to the north. The contrast between the two worlds is made clear to readers, as the contrast between…
A Silver Dish by Saul Bellow – Literary Devices
Anti-hero Bellow makes the character of Morris Selbst enough of a likeable rouge that readers can easily see why his son would be willing to forgive his crimes and try to help him improve. Morris may be considered a hero of the work because he is a sympathetic main character: certainly, he is something of…
A Silver Dish by Saul Bellow – Themes
Familial Love Woody Selbst loves his father much like an indulgent father might love his irresponsible, yet self-serving son. Woody loses the opportunity to have his education paid for because of the selfish actions of his father. Because he loves his father, he gives him his savings when the old man wants to hire a…
A Silver Dish by Saul Bellow – Characters
Halina Bujak Halina Bujak is a Catholic woman who has worked in Morris Selbst’s dry cleaning shop. When Woody is fourteen, Morris leaves his family to live with Halina, and Morris and Halina live as husband and wife for over forty years, although Halina remains married to someone else. Of all members of his extended…
A Silver Dish by Saul Bellow – Summary
Saul Bellow begins “A Silver Dish” by focusing on Woody Selbst, the protagonist, at age sixty. He is a successful businessman, the owner of a tile distribution company, living alone in an apartment on the top floor of his company warehouse. It is Sunday morning, and the bells are ringing in churches all around the…
Rosa by Cynthia Ozick – Analysis
How does one deal with the Holocaust and its memory? This is the question that “Rosa” brings to mind, but does not necessarily answer. Rosa Lublin’s niece Stella theorizes that there are three lives: before the Holocaust, during, and after. Rosa claims: “Before is a dream. After is a joke. Only during stays.” Rosa’s answer…
Rosa by Cynthia Ozick – Literary Devices
Setting The setting of Miami, Florida, figures prominently in this story. The incessant heat and humidity add to Rosa’s suffering and make her even more reluctant to leave her room. “Where I put myself is in hell,” Rosa writes to Stella early in the story. The frequent mentions of the intense, suffocating heat confirm this…
Rosa by Cynthia Ozick – Themes
The Holocaust “Rosa” gives a dramatic example of how the Holocaust not only took the lives of the millions of Jews who died in concentration camps, but also emotionally crippled millions of others who survived. While Rosa and Stella survived the camp physically, both are disabled emotionally, though they deal with it in very different…