Summary One winter evening, around dusk, while he is sitting at the end of a counter and talking to George, the manager of a diner in Summit, Illinois, a small town south of Chicago, Nick Adams watches two over-dressed strangers in black (Al and Max) enter the diner. After complaining […]
Read more Summary and Analysis The KillersSummary and Analysis Sonnet 6
Summary Sonnet 6 continues the winter imagery from the previous sonnet and furthers the procreation theme. Winter, symbolizing old age, and summer, symbolizing youth, are diametrically opposed. The poet begs the young man not to die childless — “ere thou be distill’d” — without first making “sweet some vial.” Here, […]
Read more Summary and Analysis Sonnet 6Summary and Analysis Lindo Jong: The Red Candle
Like earlier chapters, this one also deals with the theme of sacrifice and filial obligations. Earlier, An-mei’s mother sacrificially mutilated herself for her mother; here, Lindo submits her life to her parents’ plans for her future: “I once sacrificed my life to keep my parents’ promise,” the chapter begins. Lindo […]
Read more Summary and Analysis Lindo Jong: The Red CandleSummary and Analysis The Three-Day Blow
Summary One rainy autumn afternoon, Nick hikes up in the north Michigan woods to a cabin to meet his friend Bill. Talking and drinking, they finally discuss Nick’s breaking off his romantic relationship with Marjorie. Bill dogmatically insists that Nick did the right thing. A woman, he insists, will ruin […]
Read more Summary and Analysis The Three-Day BlowSummary and Analysis Sonnet 5
Summary Sonnet 5 compares nature’s four seasons with the stages of the young man’s life. Although the seasons are cyclical, his life is linear, and hours become tyrants that oppress him because he cannot escape time’s grasp. Time might “frame / The lovely gaze where every eye doth dwell,” meaning […]
Read more Summary and Analysis Sonnet 5Summary and Analysis The End of Something
Summary A teenager now, Nick Adams has been dating Marjorie, a girl who has been working during the summer at a resort on Hortons Bay. This evening, the two of them row to a beach on the bay. After a picnic supper, Nick tells Marjorie that he wants to break […]
Read more Summary and Analysis The End of SomethingSummary and Analysis An-mei Hsu: Scar
To June Woo, the mothers who treasure the evenings that they spend together at the Joy Luck Club seem little more than elderly, middle-class women in their “slacks, bright print blouses, and different versions of sturdy walking shoes.” Yet we know now that the life of June’s mother, Suyuan, was […]
Read more Summary and Analysis An-mei Hsu: ScarSummary and Analysis Sonnet 4
Summary The themes of narcissism and usury (meant here as a form of use) are most developed in this sonnet, with its references to wills and testaments. The terms “unthrifty,” “legacy,” “bequest,” and “free” (which in line 4 means to be generous), imply that nature’s generosity should be matched by […]
Read more Summary and Analysis Sonnet 4Summary and Analysis The Doctor and the Doctor’s Wife
Summary Dr. Adams hires two American Indians to cut some logs that broke free from a shipment bobbing downstream toward a large sawmill company. They are glad to make some extra money and are in a good mood, good-naturedly teasing the doctor about stealing the logs. The doctor becomes furious […]
Read more Summary and Analysis The Doctor and the Doctor’s WifeSummary and Analysis Sonnet 3
Summary Drawing on farming imagery, the poet focuses entirely on the young man’s future, with both positive and negative outcomes. However, the starting point for these possible futures is “Now,” when the youth should “form another,” that is, father a child. The sonnet begins with the image of a mirror […]
Read more Summary and Analysis Sonnet 3