Summary Sonnet 13 furthers Sonnet 12’s theme of death by again stating that death will forever vanquish the young man’s beauty if he dies without leaving a child. Some significance may lie in the fact that the poet refers to the youth as “you” in Sonnet 13 for the first […]
Read more Summary and Analysis Sonnet 13Summary and Analysis A Clean, Well-Lighted Place
Summary Late in the early morning hours, in a Spanish cafe, an old man drinks brandy. A young waiter is angry; he wishes that the old man would leave so that he and an older waiter could close the cafe and go home. He insults the deaf old man and […]
Read more Summary and Analysis A Clean, Well-Lighted PlaceSummary and Analysis Lena St. Clair: Rice Husband
Lena believes that her mother has an uncanny ability for predicting bad things that will befall the family. For example, she predicted the failure of a bank and her own husband’s death. Lena worries what she will say about the house that Lena and her husband, Harold, have bought in […]
Read more Summary and Analysis Lena St. Clair: Rice HusbandSummary and Analysis Sonnet 12
Summary Sonnet 12 again speaks of the sterility of bachelorhood and recommends marriage and children as a means of immortality. Additionally, the sonnet gathers the themes of Sonnets 5, 6, and 7 in a restatement of the idea of using procreation to defeat time. Sonnet 12 establishes a parallel way […]
Read more Summary and Analysis Sonnet 12Summary and Analysis Hills Like White Elephants
Summary In the early 1920s, an American man and a girl, probably nineteen or twenty years old, are waiting at a Spanish railway station for the express train that will take them to Madrid. They drink beer as well as two licorice-tasting anis drinks, and finally more beer, sitting in […]
Read more Summary and Analysis Hills Like White ElephantsSummary and Analysis Part III: American Translation
A mother is horrified when she discovers that her married daughter has placed a mirrored armoire at the foot of the bed. She is certain that the mirror will deflect all happiness from her daughter’s marriage, so she remedies the situation by giving her daughter a mirror to hang above […]
Read more Summary and Analysis Part III: American TranslationSummary and Analysis Sonnet 11
Summary The poet now argues that the young man needs to have a child in order to maintain a balance in nature, for as the youth grows old and wanes, his child’s “fresh blood” will act as a balance to his own old age. The young man is irresponsible not […]
Read more Summary and Analysis Sonnet 11Summary and Analysis The Short Happy Life of Francis Macomber
Summary It is noon. Francis Macomber is on an African safari; Macomber is thirty-five years old, a trim, fit man who holds a number of big-game fishing records. However, at the moment, he has just demonstrated that he is a coward. However, members of the safari are acting as though […]
Read more Summary and Analysis The Short Happy Life of Francis MacomberSummary and Analysis Jing-mei Woo: Two Kinds
To Jing-mei’s mother, America is the Land of Opportunity. She has high hopes that her daughter will be a great success as a prodigy. She’s not precisely sure where her daughter’s talents lie, but she is sure that her daughter possesses great ability — it is simply a matter of […]
Read more Summary and Analysis Jing-mei Woo: Two KindsSummary and Analysis Sonnet 10
Summary Sonnet 10 repeats and extends the argument of Sonnet 9, with the added suggestion that the youth really loves no one. Clearly, the poet does not seriously believe the young man to be incapable of affection, for then there would be no point in the poet’s trying to maintain […]
Read more Summary and Analysis Sonnet 10