“Residents and Transients” is set in western Kentucky. The protagonist, Mary, narrates the story in her own voice. She announces in the first paragraph, “Since my husband went away to work in Louisville, I have, to my surprise, taken a lover.” From this surprising opening, Mary explains how she finds herself back in Kentucky, living…
Tag: The United States of America
Redemption by John Gardner – Analysis
“Redemption” also belongs to this group of stories which describe and explore the vulnerary function of art. The theme of this story differs somewhat from that of the other three, but the subject matter is the same: the protagonist seeks consolation in the world of music after the death of his brother. Jack Hawthorne, the…
Redemption by John Gardner – Setting
Post-War World John Gardner, born during the Great Depression, reached adolescence in the years immediately following World War II. The accident that killed his brother took place in 1947, just two years after the end of the war. During this time, much of America was still rural and agricultural. With the advent of the nuclear…
Redemption by John Gardner – Literary Devices
Images/Imagery Several images recur throughout “Redemption.” Skulls, for example, appear three times to remind Jack of David’s death. At one point, Jack is alone, driving the tractor in the fields, thinking about the accident and his own guilt, his “sore hands clamped tight to the steering wheel, his shoes unsteady on the bucking axle-beam—for stones…
Redemption by John Gardner – Themes
God and Religion Gardner chooses God and religion as one of his central themes in “Redemption.” More specifically, Gardner chooses to explore theodicy, the defense of God’s omnipotence and goodness in the face of evil. The central question of theodicy is, of course, if God is good and all-powerful, why does God allow evil in…
Redemption by John Gardner – Characters
Betty Hawthorne Betty Hawthorne is Jack’s mother. She grieves for her son in secret; the outward manifestation of this grief is a significant weight gain. Betty struggles to keep her family together through a very difficult time. Fortunately she is comforted by her supportive friends and is able to find the strength she needs to…
Redemption by John Gardner – Summary
”Redemption” is set in a small farming community in upstate New York. The story opens abruptly with John (Champlin) Gardner, Jr. the announcement that, ”Jack Hawthorne ran over and killed his brother, David.” Jack was driving a tractor and towing a cultipacker when his brother fell off the large machine. Jack is unable to act…
A New England Nun – Analysis
A number of critics have noted that the opening paragraph of Mary Wilkins Freeman’s “A New England Nun” very closely echoes the first stanza of English poet Thomas Gray’s famous “Elegy Written in a Country Churchyard”: The curfew lolls the knell of parting day, / The lowing herd wind slowly o’er the lea, / The…
A New England Nun – Setting
Religion and Economics Mary Wilkins Freeman wrote most of her best-known short stories in the 1880s and 1890s. They provide a unique snapshot of a particular time and place in American history. The small towns of postCivil War New England were often desolate places. The war itself, combined with urbanization, industrialization, and westward expansion, had…
A New England Nun – Realism, Symbolism & Point of View
Setting This story about a woman who finds, after waiting for her betrothed for fourteen years, that she no longer wants to get married, is set in a small village in nineteenth-century New England. Critics have often remarked that the setting is particular but also oddly universal as are the themes Freeman chooses to treat….