The stories read help us to think about things that happen in our daily life. The experiences told are so common that all of us could be the main character of them. Feelings of love, companionship, loyalty and friendship are deeply present in the stories. All of them make us realize that we can have lots of problems and many times we are not able to solve them, such us the ones read in the stories.
In Thucydides for instance, we can appreciate the story of a girl who had mitched off school because of something very simple at the beginning. She hadn’t had time to prepare a piece of homework, she felt guilty and didn’t go to school. Then the protagonist didn’t go to classes the next day because she felt guiltier, not only because she hadn’t done her homework, but also because she hadn’t gone to classes the day before. This situation went on for a long time. And at the end, it helped her to realize the infidelity of her father.
Dingo story makes us realize the love that humans may have for animals. Some people say that animals, especially dogs, are real friends. Humans can betray us whenever they have the opportunity to do it. On the other hand, animals are always loyal. They will never betray us, and they don’t care if we have money or not, if we have something to offer them or not. On the contrary, some unreal friends like humans are with us because of convenience and the benefits they can get from us. That is why we must be very careful when choosing friends. Sometimes it is better to have few friends if they are real ones than to have a lot superficial ones. The protagonist for instance, didn’t care what breed the bitch was or where it came from. He loved and accepted it just the way it was.
Something relevant that I would like to mention about Dingo story is that the protagonist acted in a way more loyal than his bitch did. He didn’t care that it was a wild dog, and therefore dangerous for the job he had. On the contrary, I think Dingo did not appreciate that love because it ran away with a pack. At the beginning, I thought it was because the bitch was afraid of being drowned, but it should trust its owner and know that nothing bad was going to happen.
The last story, The German boy, shows us feelings like friendship and cowardice. For example, cowardice is present when it says that the protagonist of the story didn’t have the guts to tell his family that the company where he worked was bankrupt. Friendship is found when the main character mentioned his friend, a German boy, to whom he met when he was in the school. They became real friends and supported each other in sad or unhappy situations. The protagonist of the story became the only friend of the German boy, cheering him up whenever he was sad.
If we think of the similarities of the stories, we can realize that there are some feelings that are present in all three stories. Loyalty for instance is present in all of them. The protagonist of Dingo was incredibly loyal with his bitch. Loyalty is also present in The German boy who was really loyal with his country when he decided to continue speaking in his native language without caring what his classmates said. Loyalty is something that the protagonist’s father of Thucydides did not have with his family, especially with his wife because it is said that he was in the garage with another woman.
Another thing that the stories presented is that all of them had an abrupt ending. As we saw in Dingo story, it was too unexpected when it said that the bitch ran way with a pack. I was expecting it to come back with its owner, but unfortunately it didn’t happen. In Thucydides we were surprised when reading that the protagonist’s father had a relationship with another woman. It happened an unexpected day, when the protagonist had not gone to the usual place she used to go after mitching school, the Pagoda. She was in the garage when she saw her father talking in a suspicious way with a woman who was not her mother. While I was reading I never thought that the story would finish in that way.
In addition, all the stories had a sad sense. I could feel a lot of sadness when reading them. It made me very blue when I read that Dingo had decided to go away with the other dogs, leaving its owner alone. Or when it was told that the company of the protagonist in the German Boy was bankrupt and dared not tell his family about the problem that was affecting his company. Moreover, nobody can say that it was not sad to read that the father of the girl in Thucydides had been unfaithful to his wife.
Courage is also present in the stories, but this is something that was present in some of them, and should have been in others. For example, The German boy had a lot of courage when he decided to continue using his mother tongue in a country where almost nobody knew German or when it is said that the main character of this story was not able to tell his family what was going on in his job. Courage is something that the owner of Dingo should have had, nevertheless he dared not contradict the decision of his boss which was to drown Dingo. As a result, it caused the flight of the bitch. In Thucydides the girl didn’t have much courage to tell her father that she knew about his infidelity.
All these are very simple stories, anyway they are so useful for readers. They make us think about daily life problems that can happen to anybody. Perhaps, they help us in order not to make mistakes when solving hitches like the ones we have read. After reading, I remember my teacher from high school who used to say: “short stories about simple things can be the most useful tool for readers”.
