FUSILLI, by Aurora Ledesma
SUMMARY
The story begins
with an unnamed man shopping in a British supermarket called Waitrose, two
weeks before Christmas. While he is in the supermarket, he thinks about how he
and his wife Jenny, had decided not to celebrate Christmas that year. They had
also ignored Remembrance Day because of superstition. As he walks through the
aisles, he remembers a call a month ago, from his son Doug, who was a soldier
deployed to Afghanistan. The man was anxious to talk to his son. Doug advised
his father to try the “fusilli” variety: “You should stick with dried” “Fresh
is a scam”.
Now the man thinks
that he and his wife will never eat fusilli again. It is revealed that Doug has
died, and the call was the last time his father had heard his voice. Doug was
in a mortuary in Swindon, waiting for the coroner’s decision. It was pretty clear
now that they couldn’t have Doug before Christmas.
In the pasta
aisle, while he is remembering the call, he sees a woman with two children. The
woman is a bit stressed because her noisy children were screaming and out-of-control.
He looks at the mother and thinks, “She doesn’t know how lucky she is”.
In the end of the
story, he decides to buy the fusilli and puts it close to his chest. The pasta
isn’t to eat, but it is some sort of memory for Doug.
ANALYSIS
In this story, the
narrator goes between the present time and the past. The short narration is
structured around the feelings and thoughts of a father who has just lost his
son. Therefore, loss and grief are the most important themes. It shows us the
difficult life of a father who is trying to accept the death of his son, who
has been killed in the Afghanistan war. The man is also shown to suffer from
multiple emotional conflicts. He wants to remember his son, but, at the same
time, he is terrified of thinking about him. He also remembered when his son
was a kid in the days when Christmas was coming, looking for a gift to give
him. He also wondered if the toy gun he once gave Doug, as a Christmas gift,
indicated that Doug would end up going to war. He constantly reconsiders his
past actions and thinks he could have prevented his son becoming a soldier or
even prevented his son’s death.
This story tells
us what happens to the one left behind and how they deal with grief. His grief
makes him question everything. Maybe, if he hadn’t been angry when his son
called, his son wouldn’t have died.
The story deals with several themes, such as:
-The loss of a
loved one and grief. Is it possible to become happy again after having lost a
person you love as dearly as parents love their children?
-The meaning of
wars in a distant country for families, no parents should live to see their son
or daughter die. However, in times of war, young men and women, sometimes have
to pay the heaviest price and sacrifice their lives to protect others.
-How superstitions influence us.
-The consumerism and all the products for sale a long time before the main holidays (Christmas, Halloween…)
QUESTIONS
What do you think about Christmas? Do you understand
people who doesn’t celebrate it? What is your opinion about Bank holidays or
days’ celebrations?
What do people do on Remembrance Day? When is it? Why there
were “little boxes of poppies”?
What is it your method of shopping in a supermarket?
What can you say about Helmand?
What is your opinion about taking part in a foreign
war like a soldier or like a Blue Helmet?
What kind of conversation can you have with a person that
is in the middle of a war?
What do you think of giving toy weapons as a present
for children?
“The kids were doing only what kids do”. How true is
this sentence? (Boys will be boys)
When did you know that your children could give advice
to you?
Why did the writer choose “Fusilli” for the title?
VOCABULARY
aisle, mince pies, poppies, supermarket run, dithering,
scam, fads, splashing out, Waitrose, Tesco's, mortuary, traipsing, Mothercare, marauding,
goat, brats, knobbly
TWO WORLD WAR I POEMS
In Flanders Fields, by John McCrae
Strange Meeting, by Wilfred Owen