"The Thing in the Forest" By: A.S. Byatt

"The Thing in the Forest" was a very descriptive, vivid story in which two little girls wonder into the forest and encounter a "thing" which is horrid and haunts them for many years. The plot and characters are simple enough but what I had a hard time figuring out about this story was the central theme or I thought, "was there one at all?" Surely there must be so I tried to pick through and look deeper into the story and it's meaning, and this was difficult for me not only in this story but often times the theme may not pop out to me right away.
What I came up with was maybe the "thing" the little girls saw represented their fear, their country was in wartime and they were evacuated to a safer place away from their families. I can imagine they must have been pretty scared and I'm not sure if the "thing" was real or if they made it up but it was their fear and then these fears haunted them the rest of their life. At the end, both girls go back to see the "thing" once more, which shows how sometimes we need to face our fears in order to move past them and continue with our lives.

"Araby" By: James Joyce

Throughout "Araby," Joyce uses vivid descriptions and strong emotion as he tells about a young boy who is "in love" with a neighbor girl who goes out of his way to try and please her. There is a sentence that stands out to me the most, it is the very last one of the story. Joyce explains the intense frustration the boy feels once he realizes how foolish he is acting, "Gazing up into the darkness I saw myself as a creature driven and derided by vanity, and my eyes burned with anguish and anger."
The boy represents the world and how we get caught up in material things of this world. The same way he was obsessed with this beautiful girl and ready to go to extreme lengths to satisfy her in order to get her to like him, we go out of our way to be accepted. Just as the boy, we often end up feeling foolish and are disappointed by our silly attempts to conform. He realizes that it's not worth it, this is a lesson that alot of us should learn and instead just be ourselves and be true to who we are.

"Cathedral" By: Raymond Carver

At the beginning of "Cathedral" the womans husband is not enthusiastic or inviting to the blind man, Robert, that is coming to stay with them. He is uncomfortable with the fact that this blind stranger that his wife used to work for will be in his house. However, at the end, when he is drawing the cathedral for Robert he becomes sympathetic for him and he all of a sudden wants to connect with him. While he was drawing Robert told him to close his eyes, then when he is done Robert tells him to open them but he hesistates and they remain shut because the man doesn't want to open his eyes, knowing that the blind man cannot and he wants to be relate with Robert. This shows how at first we might not accept others but if we are willing to put ourselves in thier shoes and look at things through their perspective we can relate to them and form that bond. We must be open to others, no matter how different or unfamiliar it is to us.