The Little Willow

The little willow if an interesting story of love that remained unfulfilled. 

It tells the spiritual bond between tow persons. 

The writer wants to show that the real love is not a blind kind of romantic attraction between and young man and a pretty young girl based on physical charm. A true love is a sacred spiritual relation between two persons based on similarly of temperaments. 

There are three sisters belonging to the English family called Avery. The two elder sisters, Charlotte and Brenda were tall and graceful girls. They were very expert in the art of seducing young men. 

But their younger sister Lisby was noble, straightforward, modest and unassuming. One day Simon Byrne came to the court House. Both Simon Byrne and Lisby fall in love with each other, Lisby never displayed her love to Simon Byrne. 

Lisby’s love was quiet calm and secret for Simon Byrne. Both did not express their love to each other face. At Simon Byrne departure, Lisby gave him “The Little Willow” tree as a gift. After this Simon Byrne went to the war front and was fatally wounded by a blast. 

He died in the hospital. Before his death, he told Caption Oliver that he loved the girl who gave him “The little willow tree”. 

When Lisby listen the bad news, she begins to weep and admits her love for him by saying that “he was my dear, dear love”.    

A passion in the desert

It is an interesting story which shows the relation and mutual understanding between a man and a beast. The writer wants to show the idea that wild animal can be tamed down if treated lovingly. 

The French soldier is the central character of the story who is capable of facing the hardship and distresses of life with courage and determination. He was made captive by the Moors but he did not lose heart. When he found his enemies sleeping in the desert, he took the opportunity to run away from their bondage. 

He took the danger of being captured and killed by the Moors or being engulfed in the sea of sand. But the fighting spirit in him did not let him submit himself to his lot. He is determined to face the new danger tactfully. He is sensible enough to know that if he tried to kill the beast with his gun or dagger, he might be attacked and killed by the wounded animal when the panther woke up in the morning, 

the soldier try to overpower the powerful beast with a show of love and trust. He displays of affection worked wonders. Soldier’s attachment with the panther was not sincere. He always remained in search of some opportunity to get rid of slavery. 

Therefore he lost no time to stab his leg into her mouth. It was a hasty step taken in self-defence, but he left remorseful see love and pity in the eyes of dying animal. He felt guilty conscience on killing the leopard that loved him sincerely and trusted him blindly.

The Fly

The fly is a symbolic story that establishes an important fact of wife. The story tells that time is a great healer of pain and miseries. 

The story also tells that man is helpless before destiny. However, the blessing of time reduces the effect of tragedy that is caused by destiny. 

Woodifield was an old retired man who lived in the suburbs of city. He was a heart patient and was well looked after by his daughters. 

His daughters did not let him go out of the house except on Tuesday. He visited his friends on Tuesday. One Tuesday Woodifield visited his ex-boss the visit to Belgium where the Woodsfield’s son and the son of the boss had been buried. 

Six years ago the son of the boss and Woodsfield’s son were killed in world war. He boy’s sudden death was an unbearable blow to the boss. 

At that time he did not believe that time would heal up his wound. After six years the boss had completely forgot his son’s death. After Woodifield departure, the boss was mentally disturbed and thought of his late son. 

During this time a fly fell into his inkpot. When it came out the boss pushed it again into the inkpot. At last it lay dead in the ink. 

Thus in this story everything is a symbol of fly who is killed by someone for amusement.

A conversation with my father

It is an interesting story in the form of literary discussion between the writer of the story and her old father. 

The story also throws light on the old and new trends in the art of story writing. 

The writer of the story is representative of the modern tradition, while her father is spokesman of old style. 

The modern writers narrate stories in a brief and simple manner. They do not like to indulge in unnecessary details. They like to give an abrupt end to a late. 

On the other hand, the old father of the writer is eighty six years old man he appreciated the stories written by French writer Maupassant and Russian dramatist Chekov. One day he requests her daughter to write a simple and short story. The wrier makes up her mind to oblige her father. She describes a true incident of real life. But story was rejected her father. 

She again writes a story according to the instructions of her father but she fails to satisfy her father. The old man comes to the conclusion that his daughter is incapable of writing a brief and simple story in the manner of Maupassant and Chekov, and advises her not to waste her time and energies. 

Thus we see that grace Paley failed to come up to sensibility of her old father who was a man of his own artistic tastes and uncompromising standards.

The shadow in the rose garden

The shadow in the rose garden is the story of husband and wife who could not love each others and enjoy the fruits of marriage. There was some misunderstanding between them. They did not open their hearts to each other for some reasons.Her old lover was a military officer.

They could not marry as the military officer was sent to North Africa where he was reported to have died. After that she met the engineer Mr. Frank who liked her and married her without inquiring about her past.

The wife could not lover her husband whole heatedly because her unfulfilled love kept her mentally disturbed. He could not understand why his wife tried to avoid him. The reality dawned upon him during their visit to a seaside village. After three years of marriage the wife had brought her husband there to revive her memories of love affair with the military officer.

One day she went secretly to see the beautiful rose garden where she used to meet her old lover.

When she was sitting on a bench in the rose garden she had a chance meeting with her old lover who was still alive but had gone mad. She recognized her rising on his finger. But she was shocked to know that her old lover could not even recognize her.

Now she realized her folly of not loving her husband for the save of her old lover. Who was mentally deranged. In this way a little incident changed the whole course of marriage couple life. 

The duchess and the jeweller

The duchess and the jeweller present a satirical picture of English society as it was towards the end of the 19^th century. The old aristocratic class found it difficult to survive.

Their limited income from lands could not meet their rising expenses of daily life. The Duchess is a true representative of aristocratic class. She is liar and cheater.

Oliver Bacon, the jeweller, is the central character of the story. His character is a representative of the Victoria age to which he belonged.

He symbolize materialistic attitude of life. He was not born with a silver spoon in his mouth. He struggled hard to honour and social status.

He was hungry of wealth and wanted to amass as much of it as he could. He knew that wealth was a symbol of social prestige. The Duchess was a morally corrupt woman. Due to lavish spending, she was always in bad need of money.

For his purpose she had maintained friendly relations with Oliver Bacon, the wealthiest jeweller of London. She had once succeeded in selling false pearls to him. The jeweller allowed her to deceive him because he had a soft corner of heart for her pretty daughter Diana whom he wanted to marry.

The Duchess was so morally low that she again came to the jeweller to sell ten more fake pearls and succeeded in the name of their old friendship. 

Necklace

The necklace is a thought provoking story. It is basically the story of human vanity. It is a good commentary of human nature, especially the mentality of women. The writer wants to show that physical beauty is the most important merit of a woman. It makes a woman superior to all other the woman of rank and wealth. 

The pretty women try to impress others and win their admiration for this reason. They are excessively fond of fashionable clothes and precious ornaments which enhance their beauty and make them more charming. All these ideas have been illustrated through the story of Matilda and her husband. 

Matilda was a beautiful woman who considered herself superior to other women in beauty but she was born in a low class family and was married to a mere clerk. One day Mr. Loisel brought an invitation card for her. Mr. Loisel thought that his wife would be delighted to get a chance to enjoy the gathering of important personalities. She borrowed a necklace from her wealthy fried madam Forestier. 

The necklace was lost in the ball. The wife and husband had to struggle hard to pray loan/necklace. It took them ten years to repay price of 
necklace. 

One day Mr. Loisel was informed that necklace was an imitation. Matilda wondered how her life had been if she had not lost necklace

What statement does the story as a whole make about pride and materialism? Or discuss necklace as a story of human vanity.

          The sum and substance of whole story is that human life is very complicated and few people can understand is fully. 

Common people give great importance to material prosperity and pride as a sign of success. The writer has commented on human nature especially the mentality of women. He says that materialism is a cure of almost all the human hardship and miseries. 

Maupassant has artistically put all these concepts in the necklace. Matilda is a poor victim of pride and she is obsesses with the idea of materialism. Her physical beauty is mischief and she goes on thinking to make her beauty perfect through artificial decorations. 

She attends a ball and she is praised by everyone. She losses the borrowed necklace in the ball and has to pay thirty-six thousand frames for its replacement. 

The husband and the wife have to work hard for ten years to repay the debt and Matilda comes to know that the borrowed necklace was an imitation. Actually the story shows that pride is an imitation and materialism is an illusion.