How Pearl Button Was Kidnapped, by Katherine Mansfield

SUMMARY

Pearl Button is a little girl living in a big and rich house, a kind of house that she calls House of Boxes. At the moment of the story, she is playing in the garden, when two big and fat women (perhaps native New Zealander people or gipsies) get there. They liked the child very much and offer her to go with them. At first, the girl has some doubts, but, as the two women seem very nice and wear coloured robes, she decides to go. So they go away from the girl’s house on foot, but, after a while, the girl feels tired, and one of the women carry her. They arrive to their camp; there everybody is very nice, and they give her some fruit. She likes it very much, and, although she stains her dress, nobody worries about it. Then they leave their camp and drive on carts until they reach the beach; Pearl has never seen the sea and she’s amazed and happy. She sees the small houses where these happy people live; the women take off her clothes, and all of them go to the shore. A small wave wets Pearl’s feet and, after the first surprise, she enjoys it very much. But, at this moment, policemen arrive to rescue the girl.

But, was the girl really kidnapped? Or is it better to say that she ran away from her boring life? Were the two women kidnapping her? Or were they only inviting her?

To be happy, do you have to break the rules, do you have to escape from the routine?

There is a narrator in this story, but sometimes this narrator uses the characters’ words and thoughts to tell the story, e.g., “House of Boxes”. What is the effect of this? Don’t you feel nearer the characters? The distance between narrator and character is broken and you are aware you know better their feelings, their points of view.

AUDIOBOOK

 

QUESTIONS

What does the name’s girl suggest to you?

What resources does the author use to make the two women nice for us?

What does a “House of Boxes” look like?

Do you think the girl cried because she was afraid? How do you know?

“The woman was warm as a cat”. What animal do you think is the best pet for a child? Why?

Are fat people nicer or kinder, according to the cliché? Are they more “comfortable”?

Why dies the writer says “[the water] stopped being blue in her hands”?

Who were the “little men in blue coats”? How do you know?

What do you know about the Stockholm syndrome?

 

VOCABULARY

swung, rugs, whip, briar, nestled, purring, paddock, coaxed

Funny Little Snake, by Tessa Hadley

Funny Little Snake in The New Yorker

SUMMARY

Gil (or Gilbert) a 50-year-old history professor, divorced and remarried, feels his duty to invite her only child, a 9-year-old daughter with his first wife and whom he hasn’t seen for 5 years, to spend a few days with him and his new young wife, Valerie, in their house in the north of England, away from London, where his ex-wife lives.

Gil drives to pick up his daughter Robyn, but then, once he’s at home, leaves her to the absolute care of his wife, with the excuse of too much work. Valerie, who didn’t know anything about her nor about children in general, can see now that Robyn is a poor very underdeveloped shy child and is puzzled about how to deal with her. But she tries to do her best.

The day to take her back to her mother arrives, and Gil again, with the excuse of too much work, asks Valerie to do the errand and take the girl back to London by train, and that isn’t a short trip.

So to London they go. There Valerie discovers what kind of person is Marise, Robyn’s mother: a sophisticated ex-hippie who is living with a much younger musician, Jamie, and who doesn’t know her anything about the duties of a parent. Now Valerie understands why the girl is so immature in body and mind.

Valerie has to spend the night at her mother’s intending to go back home the next day, but the next day is snowing, and the trains aren’t working very well, so she has to wait in London. She doesn’t like being with her mother and doesn’t know what to do in the meanwhile. She goes for a walk, and her steps, or her tube, takes her unconsciously to Marise’s. Not knowing why and how, now she’s standing near the house. Robyn is looking out of the window and, after a while, sees Valerie and starts to wave frantically at her. Suddenly, Valerie is thinking about rescuing her.

But we aren’t going to be spoilers…
Is she really going to try and rescue her? What will Marise say and do? What about Jamie? And Gil, would he like Valerie’s idea?

QUESTIONS

How does the narrator show that Robyn is a defenceless child?

Is there any irony in the character’s names? Robyn, Valerie, Gil (Gilbert) Hope, Marise, Jamie…

What kind of relationship is there between Gil and Valerie? How do you know?

And with Marise? Why did they get married, and why did they separate? Why does Gil hate Marise so much now?

Do you think it’s possible to be leftist in politics and traditional or rightist in personal questions?

Gil married two uneducated wives: Why do you think he did so, being himself so educated?

What do you think about this: is a self-made man more or less tolerant with people who haven’t been able to go up in life?

What does Gil think about his mother? And Valerie about hers?

What kind of toys did Robyn have? What games did she play?

In your opinion, why does Gil talks about himself in the third person when he’s asking for a favour to Valerie?

According to Valerie, “important men had to be selfish in order to get ahead”. What is your point of view about this?

What are the differences between sitting room and drawing room? And about tea (in the afternoon / evening) and supper or dinner?

Why do you think Marise and Jamie are partners? Is there love between them?

Does Marise love her child? How do you know?

Do you think Valerie has different manners with Gil when she’s at home from when she’s at Marise’s?

What is the relation of the title with the story?

What is the symbolic meaning of the “stuffed birds and that horse” at Marise’s?

What is the meaning of “Gilbert sitting there steering along in the little cockpit”?

Does the snow and the end of the story work as a symbol? What symbol?

Why, according to your view, does Valerie go to rescue Robyn? And why does Jamie help her? Why does Robyn want to get away with Valerie?
In your opinion, what is going to happen when Valerie gets home with Robyn? How is Gil going to react?
The last sentence says: “Just for the moment, though, the child was inconsolable”? Why was she so?

Another summary

Dog, by Graham Swift

 

SUMMARY AND COMMENTS

The plot is very simple: a 56-year-old father, remarried to a woman half his age, takes their baby daughter to the park in her pram; there, a fierce dog attacks another child, and he runs to the baby’s defence and fights the dog with a violence so extreme that in the end he kills it. Then he takes his child back home.

But the story has more issues than this terrible incident.

The protagonist is a self-made man who has made a lot of money, has had a family of three grown up and independent children, a divorce and some love affairs. Then, in his fifties, he got married to a young woman and had a child with her: a daughter whom he loves devotedly. It seems that, once he finished bringing up a family, he stars a new life, a new family and feels young again.

But perhaps the most important theme of the story is the man’s character. We can see that he has been someone who was able to control everything: money, love…, and that taking things in control was his worthiest feature. But now, when he has fulfilled his life (money, family, children) and he’s starting a new one, it looks like as he had lost this control, so he isn’t able to master his life any more: he can’t help adoring, doting on his child with a passion so intense that he even can’t refrain his fury when he kicks the dangerous dog. In the past, he thought he would be happy mastering money and feelings, but now he discovers that this breaking free of his emotions can make him happier.

QUESTIONS

What is for you the relation between money and happiness?

What do you think of giving allowances to your children? And what about the “social salary”, I mean, about the idea of the right to have a salary because you are a person, not because you work?

Do you think it’s a good definition of growing up, “gaining more and more control”?

Do you have a pet? Are you in favour to have a pet when you have small children? Is it a good idea walking the dog in a children’s park?

Do you think that it has to be forbidden to have potentially dangerous dogs?

Is it a good idea to consider your pet as a member of your family? Do you have a dog? What is its position in your household?

“People had dogs in order to have the illusion of mastery and control”. What is your opinion about this?

The scene in which the narrator kicks the dog to save a small child is a bit distressing. Why? Too much violence? But wasn’t he saving a baby from a fatal attack?

The narrator was all the time talking about control. Why do you think he lost control in the park? Was there any other motive besides from trying to save a child from a dog?

What do you imagine Julia’s reaction to the news is going to be?

 

VOCABULARY

utterance, feather-bedded, estranged, inveigled, entrancing, bumps, swerves, put her feet up, crocuses, dab, chunks, notch, graph, dire, threshold, toppled, full-tilt, heave, breed, headsets, bellowing, contraptions, stab, teeter, mauling, writhed, far-fetched, paean, grapevine