“ The Night They Left Him Alone”
I found this story thought provoking because of the manner in which it touches upon the topics of responsibility, fate, and death. The motivations of the character are unclear from the very first dialogue. Thus, when Feliciano asks his companions why they do not hurry up, they answer that they need to get to safety at dawn. The exchange strikes the reader as making little sense since the logical assumption I made is that they should hurry anyway. However, as the story progressed I realized that the two men might have planned to lose Feliciano to make it easier to find safety either for themselves or for him. The fact that the question whether the split up was planned is never answered adds depth to the story, making it a pleasant reading.
“ Paso del Norte”
This short story is captivating because the author leaves it for the reader to decide who is right in the conflict between the father and the son. Since most of the novel is presented as dialogue, both sides make their positions clear. Moreover, they make appealing and consistent arguments in favor of their respective worldviews. Therefore, the story is challenging because it prompts the reader to take a stand on such burning and controversial issue as immigration to the US. Is it worth it? Is it morally right to leave one’s family and try fate in a risky adventure? I found myself looking for answers to these uncomfortable questions while reading the story without being lectured by the author.
Delegate your assignment to our experts and they will do the rest.
“ Remember”
I found the short novel powerful and unsettling. The narrator manages to make the story of Urbano Gomez as relatable as possible by insisting that the reader must remember it. However, the goal of this repeated command appears to be not to make the reader engrave in memory the particular events mentioned by the narrator, but to make the readers realize that they have met such “Urbanos” in their lives. The main character of the story is not necessarily a fictional one. He is an everyman to some extent since everybody has met at some point in their lives a person marginalized by society and waiting to take a painful revenge.
