When she was a child, Lena St. Clair often wondered about a beggar whom her grandfather had sentenced to die in the worst possible way. She imagines all sorts of gruesome torture. Appalled by her interest in violence, her mother said that the way he died didn’t matter. Lena thinks […]
Read more Summary and Analysis Lena St. Clair: The Voice from the WallSummary and Analysis Sonnet 8
Summary In this sonnet, the poet compares a single musical note to the young man and a chord made up of many notes to a family. The marriage of sounds in a chord symbolizes the union of father, mother, and child. The first twelve lines elaborate a comparison between music […]
Read more Summary and Analysis Sonnet 8Summary and Analysis Waverly Jong: Rules of the Game
Waverly Jong, the narrator of this section, explains that she was six years old when her mother taught her “the art of invisible strength,” a strategy for winning arguments and gaining respect from others in games. Waverly and her two brothers live on Waverly Place in San Francisco’s Chinatown. The […]
Read more Summary and Analysis Waverly Jong: Rules of the GameSummary and Analysis In Another Country
Summary Trying to regain use of a knee that was wounded during World War I, Nick is in an Italian hospital for therapy, riding a kind of tricycle that his doctor promises will keep the muscles elastic. Nick is dubious of the machine and the therapy, as is a friend […]
Read more Summary and Analysis In Another CountrySummary and Analysis Sonnet 7
Summary Sonnet 7 compares human life to the passage of the sun (“gracious light”) from sunrise to sunset. The sun’s rising in the morning symbolizes the young man’s youthful years: Just as we watch the “sacred majesty” of the ever-higher sun, so too does the poet view the youth. The […]
Read more Summary and Analysis Sonnet 7Summary and Analysis Part II: The Twenty-Six Malignant Gates
A mother cautions her seven-year-old daughter not to ride her bicycle around the corner. When the daughter protests, her mother explains that the child will fall, will cry out — and will be out of earshot. It is all written in a book called The Twenty-Six Malignant Gates, the mother […]
Read more Summary and Analysis Part II: The Twenty-Six Malignant GatesSummary and Analysis A Way You’ll Never Be
Summary Nick Adams has been wounded in Italy during World War I and is suffering from shell-shock, or post-traumatic stress syndrome. He is plagued by nightmares, in which he sees the eyes of the Austrian soldier who shot him. Nick’s friend, the Italian Captain Paravicini, believes that Nick’s head wound […]
Read more Summary and Analysis A Way You’ll Never BeSummary and Analysis Ying-ying St. Clair: The Moon Lady
The drama in which the Moon Lady is a major character concerns the loss and reclamation of cultural and individual identities. Four-year-old Ying-ying, who has fallen overboard, is desperate to be “found” — to once again be reunited with her family — and with herself. She feels as though she […]
Read more Summary and Analysis Ying-ying St. Clair: The Moon LadySummary and Analysis The Killers
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 6