Fate Fate is destiny, an event or course of events that will happen in a person’s lifetime. Fate is predetermined; it cannot be altered or changed from what it was always meant to be. This is an integral belief in the traditional Japanese culture and a primary theme in Kawabata’s ‘‘The Grasshopper and the Bell…
Tag: Themes
Forty-Five a Month – Themes
Working Class The family that is the subject of Narayan’s ‘‘Forty-Five a Month’’ is a working-class family. In a working-class family, one or more members of the family earn the money the family needs for basic necessities. Working-class jobs are typically viewed as those that are low-paying, often require long hours, and often involve physical…
The Doll’s House by Katherine Mansfield – Themes
Class Conflict The town that is depicted in ‘‘The Doll’s House’’ is clearly one with a range of different social classes, as Mansfield explains in the fourteenth paragraph. This explains why people of different classes are attending the same school. For examples of the different economic levels represented here, she mentions judges and doctors, storekeepers…
Dog Star by Arthur C Clarke – Themes
Parapsychology Clarke was not interested in paranormal phenomena per se. That is, he did not automatically believe in the claims of the supernatural. What interested Clarke was a class of items that seem to represent valid pieces of evidence that have not yet been fully accounted for by rationalist, materialist, or scientific explanation. In rhetorical…
Contents of the Dead Man’s Pocket – Themes
Values (Philosophy) In ‘‘Contents of the Dead Man’s Pocket,’’ Finney explores modern values. The main character, Tom, is a young, hard-working, conscientious advertising executive. He wants to distinguish himself in his field and rise to the top of all the young men who are working in his company. Tom thinks about the project he is…
The Censors by Luisa Valenzuela – Themes
Paranoia Without knowing the context within which ‘‘The Censors’’ was written, it would be easy to view Juan’s actions and perceptions in the story as paranoid. However, many of his fears, when considered within the framework of the repressive Argentine government that Valenzuela lived through in the 1970s and into the 1980s, may have been…
B. Wordsworth by V. S. Naipaul – Themes
Friendship The young boy and B. Wordsworth form an unusual but genuine friendship. Each one contributes something to it. The boy finds B. Wordsworth a very interesting character. He has probably never met anyone quite like him. He listens to the poet’s fanciful words without cynicism or judgment, and he learns a lot from him….
Aunty Misery – Themes
Death The main theme in ‘‘Aunty Misery’’ is the importance of death in the world. This significance is shown not only in the consequences of Death’s entrapment in the pear tree but also textually. Indeed, death is personified and becomes a character that drives the climax and denouement (end) of the story. He is also…
What We Talk About When We Talk About Love – Themes
Love The central theme of this story is love. The two couples spend the evening drinking gin and discussing the nature of “real love.” The narrator explains that ”we somehow got on the subject of love.” It is Mel who insists on returning to the topic of love. He believes that “love was nothing less…
That Evening Sun – Themes
Race Relations The troubled race relations that have characterized the South throughout its history are the backdrop for “That Evening Sun,” even if they are not the main concern of the story. Nancy, the main character in the story, is a typical African-American woman of the South in the Jim Crow era. “Jim Crow” was…