SUMMARY SHORT STORIES

A mere interlude by Thomas Haedy (1885)

Baptista Trewthen: daughter of a small farmer on an Island St. Maria. He spends a lot of money by sending her to a fancy school on the mainland. After two years she starts to work as a teacher. But she doesn’t like the job. An older, rich man proposes to her (Mr. Heddegan, friend and neighbour of the family). Her parents want her to say yes, and not very enthusiastically, she gives in and says yes. When she wants to return to the island, she misses her boat. Because of this she has to spend a few days in Pen-Zephyr, where she meets a guy she studied with, Charles Stow. When he hears what she’s up to, he proposes as well. The impulsive, and indecisive Baptista agrees and says yes. They get married two days later. When they want to go to the island together to tell her parents the news, Charles drowns during a swim. When she arrives, she doesn’t know what to do and marries with Mr. Heddegan. Without telling anyone about Charles. When they go on a short honeymoon in Pen-Zephyr, she discovers that in another room of her hotel, the body of her dead husband is kept. She secretly goes to his burial. They go back home. There everything goes as usual, until a figure comes by who was a glazier at the church Charles and Baptista got married and witnessed the marriage. He starts to blackmail her, after losing a lot of money she tells her husband the truth. He is relieved and happy because he also has a secret. He had four children out of a relationship with a woman on Pen-Zephyr. Because they didn’t go to school, he wanted to do something for her and therefore married a teacher. The loveless marriage turns into a great friendship in which they help each other and love the four girls Baptista Trewthen: daughter of a small farmer on an Island St. Maria. He spends a lot of money by sending her to a fancy school on the mainland. After two years she starts to work as a teacher. But she doesn’t like the job. An older, rich man proposes to her (Mr. Heddegan, friend and neighbour of the family). Her parents want her to say yes, and not very enthusiastically, she gives in and says yes. When she wants to return to the island, she misses her boat. Because of this she has to spend a few days in Pen-Zephyr, where she meets a guy she studied with, Charles Stow. When he hears what she’s up to, he proposes as well. The impulsive, and indecisive Baptista agrees and says yes. They get married two days later. When they want to go to the island together to tell her parents the news, Charles drowns during a swim. When she arrives, she doesn’t know what to do and marries with Mr. Heddegan. Without telling anyone about Charles. When they go on a short honeymoon in Pen-Zephyr, she discovers that in another room of her hotel, the body of her dead husband is kept. She secretly goes to his burial. They go back home. There everything goes as usual, until a figure comes by who was a glazier at the church Charles and Baptista got married and witnessed the marriage. He starts to blackmail her, after losing a lot of money she tells her husband the truth. He is relieved and happy because he also has a secret. He had four children out of a relationship with a woman on Pen-Zephyr. Because they didn’t go to school, he wanted to do something for her and therefore married a teacher. The loveless marriage turns into a great friendship in which they help each other and love the four girls

Analysis: use of irony, this story alerts readers to the danger of making hasty decisions.

Title explained: the irony that pervades the plot, since the interlude of Baptista’s first marriage is far from trivial

The speckled band by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle (1892)

Sherlock Holmes and Dr. Watson rise unusually early one morning to meet a young woman named Helen Stoner. Helen fears that her life is being threatened by her stepfather, Dr. Grimesby Roylott. He is a doctor who practiced in India and was married to Helen’s late mother who was a widow living in India. He has already served a jail sentence in the past for killing his Indian butler in a rage. Helen’s twin sister had died almost two years earlier, shortly before she was to be married. Helen had heard her sister’s dying words, “The speckled band!” but was unable to decode their meaning. Helen herself is now engaged, and she has begun to hear strange noises and observe strange activities around Stoke Moran, the impoverished and heavily mortgaged estate were she and her stepfather live. Dr. Roylott also keeps strange company at the estate. He is best friends with a band of Gypsies on the property and has a cheetah and a baboon as pets. For some time, he has been making modifications to the home. Before Helen’s sister’s death, he had modifications made inside the house, and is now having the outside wall repaired, forcing Helen to move into the room where her sister died. Holmes listens carefully to Helen’s story and agrees to take the case. He plans a visit to the manor later in the day. Before he can leave, however, he is visited by Dr. Roylott himself, who threatens him should be interfere. Undaunted, Holmes proceeds, first to the courthouse, where he examines Helen’s late mother’s will, and then to the countryside. At Stoke Moran, Holmes inspects the premises carefully inside and out. Among the strange features that he discovers are a bed anchored to the floor, a bell chord that does not work, and a ventilator hole between Helen’s temporary room and that of Dr. Roylott. Holmes and Watson arrange to spend the night in Helen’s room. In darkness, they wait; suddenly, a slight metallic noise and a dim light through the ventilator prompt Holmes to action. Quickly lighting a candle, he discovers on the bell cord the “speckled band” – a venomous snake. He strikes the snake with a stick, driving it back through the ventilator. Agitated, it attacks Roylott, who had been waiting for it to return after killing Helen. Holmes then reveals to Watson the motive: the late wife’s will had provided an annual income of 750 GBP, of which each daughter could claim one third upon marriage. Thus, Dr. Roylott plotted to remove both of his stepdaughters before they married to avoid losing most of the fortune he controlled when the daughters took with them their share of money left for them by their mother from their birth father’s estate.

Title explained: refers to the key clue in the story, which is a venomous snake that plays a crucial role. Foreshadows the importance of this element.

James Joyce, Eveline (1914)

Eveline Hill sits at a window in her home and looks out onto the street while fondly recalling her childhood, when she played with other children in a field now developed with new homes. Her thoughts turn to her sometimes-abusive father with whom she lives, and to the prospect of freeing herself from her hard life juggling jobs as a shop worker and a nanny to support herself and her father. Eveline faces a difficult dilemma: remain at home like a dutiful daughter, or leave Dublin with her lover, Frank, who’s a sailor. He wants her to marry him and live with him in Buenos Aires, and she has already agreed to leave with him in secret. As Eveline recalls, Frank’s courtship of her was pleasant until her father began to voice his disapproval and bicker with Frank. After that, the two lovers met clandestinely. As Eveline reviews her decision to embark on a new life, she holds in her lap two letters, one to her father and one to her brother Harry. She begins to favour the sunnier memories of her old family life, when her mother was alive and her brother was living at home, and notes that she did promise her mother to dedicate herself to maintaining the home. She reasons that her life at home, cleaning and cooking, is hard but perhaps not the worst option – her father is not always mean, after all. The sound of a street organ then reminds her of her mother’s death, and her thoughts change course. She remembers her mothers uneventful, sad life, and passionately embraces her decision to escape the same fate by leaving with Frank. At the docks in Dublin, Eveline waits in a crowd to board the ship with Frank. She appears detached and worried, overwhelmed by the images around her, and prays to God for direction. Her previous declaration of intent seems to have never happened. When the boat whistle blows and Frank pull on her hand to lead her with him, Eveline resists. She clutches the barrier as Frank is swept into the throng moving toward the ship. He continually shouts “Come!” but Eveline remains fixed to the land, motionless and emotionless.

Analysis

Eveline’s story illustrates the pitfalls of holding onto the past when facing the future. Hers is the first portrait of a female in Dubliners, and it reflects the conflicting pull many women in early 20th C. Dublin felt between a domestic life rooted in the past and the possibility of a new married life abroad. She sees Frank as a rescuer, saving her from her domestic situation. Eveline suspends herself between the call of home and the past and the call of the new experiences and the future, unable to make a decision. When she remembers the street organ that played on the night before her mother’s death, Eveline resolves not to repeat her mother’s life of “commonplace sacrifices closing in final craziness,” but she does exactly that. She desires escape, but her reliance on routine and repetition overrides such impulses.

Title explained: name of the protagonist of the story because it focuses on her internal struggles and the pivotal decision she faces.

H.H. Munro (Saki), The Open Window (1914)

Framton Nuttel, an eccentric hypochondriac3, has moved to the country on his doctor’s advice to effect a cure for a nervous condition from which he suffers. His sister has lived in the area he visits and has given him letters of introduction to his new neighbours. The story concerns his visit to the home of one of these neighbours, Mrs. Sappleton. Mr. Nuttel is first met by Mrs. Sappleton’s niece Vera, who entertains him until her aunt is available. Vera, apparently bored with her guest, is graced with an overactive imagination and a sense of mischief. Once she determines that Mr. Nuttel knows nothing about the family and is a very literal-minded fellow, Vera spins a gothic yarn involving her aunt, whom she characterizes as a mentally disturbed widow. Three years ago, Mr. Sappleton and his two younger brothers-in-law went hunting, leaving the house through a French window, which was left open until their return. However, all three of the were lost in a bog that day, Vera asserts, and their bodies were never recovered. The aunt, driven to distraction by her grief and loss, left the window open thereafter, anticipating that “They will come back some day.” With “the little brown spaniel that was lost with them and walk in that window just as they used to do”. When Mrs. Sappleton finally appears, she explains why the window is open, apparently confirming Vera’s story. Mr. Nuttel then tells Mrs. Sappleton about his nervous disorder and his need to avoid any ‘mental excitement’. Mrs. Sappleton is clearly bored, but at that very moment she sees her husband and brothers returning from their hunt. Vera appears to be horrified by the sight of them. The nervous Mr. Nuttel is therefore terrified and beats a hasty retreat from the house. In the closing paragraphs, the issue is clarified. The men had only that day gone hunting, and Vera’s yarn was purely imaginary. Mr. Nuttel has obviously been duped by Vera’s story, but Vera, a habitual liar, does not explain his odd behaviour to the others. Instead, Vera invents another story that suggests Mr. Nuttel had once been frightened by “a pack of pariah dogs” in a cemetery “on the banks of the Ganges” and apparently had bolted at the sight of the spaniel accompanying the hunters. Thus, Mr. Nuttel is perfectly victimized by the young girl’s imagination.

Title explained: symbolises the central role the window plays in both Vera's fabricated tale and the actual narrative. It sets an ominous tone and creates a path for the 'ghosts' to enter, leading to Framton Nuttel's panic. The open window also represents the opportunity Vera exploits to weave her deceptive story, capitalising on Framton's gullibility and the predictable behaviour of the adults.

Dorothy Parker, A Telephone Call (1930)

In A Telephone Call by Dorothy Parker we have the theme of desperation, insecurity, uncertainty, independence, paralysis, control, dependency, change and identity. the story is narrated in the first person by an unnamed woman and from the beginning of the story the reader realises that Parker may be exploring the theme of desperation. The man that she loves has promised to return her call however over two hours later the narrator is in a state of desperation. Longing for her boyfriend to ring her. At no stage in the story does the narrator follow through on her beliefs of calling her boyfriend. Rather she falls back into a state of complete dependency not only on God but on her boyfriend too. It would appear that the narrator is unable to live her life independently of others. So insecure is she of who she really is. The narrator remains reliant on others (both God and her boyfriend). Which may be the point that Parker is trying to make. At the time the story was written in 1928 very few women had independence from men and relied on them in order to survive. The narrator is no different she allows her insecurities to overwhelm her and even changes her mind on several occasions in order to ease the torment that she feels. The fact that the narrator begins to bargain with God may also be important as it not only suggests that she is insecure, but she may also be so uncertain of herself that she is prepared to change herself in order to please others. Something that is noticeable when the narrator begins to re- evaluate her relationship with her boyfriend and thinks about making changes that she may not necessarily need to make. Changes which would appease others but be of no benefit to the narrator. The setting of the story may also be significant as the story appears to be set in the one room, a confined space, which would further play on the theme of paralysis. The narrator is trapped not only by her way of thinking but also because of her heavy reliance on others. She is trying to ensure that she reaches some type of happiness, but she is striving for happiness externally and through the actions of others. Rather than looking within herself and realising that she can be happy without having to be insecure about the situation she finds herself in. Other symbolism in the story which may be important is the telephone. Parker describes it as being black and rooted to the wall. This in many ways mirrors the mood that the narrator finds herself in. She is deeply rooted in depression because of the lack of action of others. The use of the word ‘darling’ on several occasions in the story and the uncertainty the narrator feels with the word also suggests that the narrator is insecure in herself. She is trying to normalize a situation through memory yet is uncertain of whether she was called darling on one occasion. It is as though she is pinning all her hopes on one affectionate term. That the word ‘darling’ can provide her with some security. If anything, the narrator is allowing the negativity of the situation she finds herself in to cause her concern when the reality is the narrator (or the reader) does not know exactly why the narrator’s boyfriend has not called her. Some critics may suggest it is due to the fact that the relationship between the narrator and her boyfriend is over yet as readers we cannot be certain. We remain as unsure of the situation as the narrator.

The ending of the story is also interesting as the narrator continues to be overly concerned about whether her boyfriend will ring her or not. She has learnt nothing, nor has she allowed rationality to remain in her mind. She has made no movement throughout the story which further suggests that the narrator is to remain paralyzed. Rather than having the confidence within herself to be rational about the reasons as to why her boyfriend may have not called her the narrator begins to count to five hundred. If anything, the narrator is unnecessarily punishing herself due to her insecurities. Allowing her reliance on others to determine how she not only feels but how she acts too. Which again may be the point that Parker is attempting to make. She may be suggesting that rather than externalizing a feeling of discontent (and ringing her boyfriend again) many women at the time the story was written may have internalized their apprehensions in a predominantly male oriented world. And it is by internalizing their feelings many women may have caused themselves.

ANALYSIS

Literary Period = American modernism

—> Rejected both Enlightenment and Romanticism and strived to depict the realities of their contemporary industrialized society.

Title explained: the whole plot revolves around a phone call that a woman is waiting for

Themes:

- Obsession

• Background of woman waiting for phone call from her boyfriend which never comes. explores feminine obsession.

• Uncertainty that woman feels with regards to her boyfriend’s feelings along with the fact that he did not return her call at the promised hour, trigger. an obsessive thinking in the woman.

- Social etiquette

• Norms of conduct in the middle of the 20th century.

• Author focusses on the way women are expected to behave in a relationship.

• Female narrator presents men as unwilling to deal with sad or nagging women.

- The pains of love

• Female narrator’s obsession is triggered by her love suffering

• She reveals in her monologue that the man might not love her as he used to, and this obviously makes her suffer (motif: defective communication).

• Themes are more easily explored with the aid of this motif.

• The telephone call in the story never comes, and the communication between the woman and her boyfriend is broken.

Roald Dahl, The Way up to Heaven (1959)

Mr. and Mrs. Foster are a mature, wealthy married couple living in New York. Mrs. Foster has recently begun to suspect her husband of purposely exacerbating her "almost pathological fear of missing a train, a plane, a boat, or even a theatre curtain". She is continuously badgered by her husband, Eugene, who makes a habit of waiting to leave the house until after the proverbial last second has already passed. Mrs. Foster is preparing for a six-week trip to Paris, where their daughter and her family reside. While attempting to leave for the airport, things finally come to a head. After the usual rounds of teasing his wife's delicate psyche, Mr. Foster tries to foil his wife for the last time by claiming he has mistakenly left a present for their daughter in the house. Mr. Foster insists on looking for the gift himself and goes back inside. While her husband pretends to search their six-story home, Mrs. Foster finds the present in the car and can't help but notice "it was wedged down firm and deep, as though with the help of a pushing hand." Mrs. Foster rushes to retrieve her husband as quickly as possible but hears a noise from inside their home and has a sudden change of heart. Mrs. Foster gets back in the car and much to the surprise of the driver, demands to be driven to the airport immediately. Mrs. Foster enjoys her time in Paris and writes her husband weekly, as promised. The visit concludes, and Mrs. Foster flies back to New York. Upon her arrival at the airport, Mrs. Foster is "interested" and "might even have been a little amused" to find her husband has not sent a car to meet her. After arriving at home, she enters and notices "a great pile of mail" under the letterbox, as well as a "faint and curious odour in the air that she had never smelled before". She does a quick lap around the first floor and, seemingly satisfied, calls the elevator company to report the home's apparently broken lift. The story closes with Mrs. Foster "patiently waiting for the man who would be coming soon to repair the lift." The implication is that despite her meek and subservient behaviour for the last 30 years, Mrs. Foster was finally pushed to the point of purposely leaving her husband trapped in a broken elevator, inside their empty home, for six weeks. The central character is Mrs. Foster. Mr. Foster is a major character; the servants (not mentioned in the summary above) and driver are minor, supporting characters. The story is written from a limited omniscient point-of-view and takes place in contemporaneous New York City. The story’s conclusion is foreshadowed in several subtle ways, including Mrs. Foster’s recognition of her husband’s deliberate cruelty, her desire to live in Paris permanently, and her lack of regret when her six-week visit comes to an end. The most obvious foreshadowing is her writing that she doubts her husband will be eating regularly while she is gone and her noticing the strange odour when she comes home. It’s a revenge tale.

Title explained: Mrs. Foster's way to heaven on earth is to kill her husband (send him to heaven) by leaving him trapped between floors going upstairs in their New York home's elevator.

Alan Paton, The Waste Land (1961)

A hard-working man gets off the bus and instantly feels that he’s in danger. A group of young men wants to rob him, and they don’t care how far they’ll have to go. The main character tries to escape and is being chased into the wasteland beside the road and he hits one of the pursuers with a stick in self-defence. Unfortunately, it turns out to be the main character’s son (who was a part of the gang) and after hiding underneath a trolley the main character realises this and discovers that his son, Freddy is dead. The story is told from a third person’s view and takes place in a South African town at night. It resolves around the emotions and thoughts of the main character, and how these results in his desperate struggle for survival. Direct speech is used in the text and everything seems to happen very fast.

Themes:

- Crime and desperation: which drives a young man to rob his own father that roams in South Africa.

- Decadence of society: enhanced through sub-themes like violence, pain and fear. Societies are labelled decadent when their member engage in immoral behaviours and acts. This can refer to any number of attitudes and actions such as greed, violence, …

Title explained: refers to the literal waste land but also to a society and community that has been laid to waste, forcing the poor and working classes to turn against each other.

Message: South Africans are exposed to violence and anarchy, mostly because of their poverty which in its turn, was largely a result of the apartheid regime in the country.

Allan Sillitoe, Enoch’s Two Letters (1972)

It is about how a little boy is left alone by his parents. Because his father chooses to run away with another woman, only leaving a letter on the doormat. At the same time, his mother has had it with her husband and decides to go live with her sister for a while. She also leaves a letter on the doormat. When Enoch return home from school that day, he finds himself all alone in the big empty house. On the one hand it is the biggest dream to be home alone for an 8-year-old boy, but on the other hand it can provoke fear. He thinks they’re dead just like the father of Johnny Bootle. When his father died, Enoch had fancied him. He keeps thinking that they will be back in any minute, but they don’t come so he has to stay all night in the house on his own. The next day he’s still alone, so he decides to go to his grandmother in Netherfield. After explaining his grandmother, the story, they return to the house. After a search around the house they find the two letters on the doormat. When his parents had mad, they were unable to say much, which they had confused with love at first sight. And nowadays they still didn’t try to talk each other. Enoch has a pale round face, ginger hair and has a streak of red toffee-stain across his mouth. Enoch has shown courage throughout the story, but in the moment, he discovers the two letters with his grandmother, he gets nervous and can only think of the worst: “thinking now that they were both dead for sure”. Jack is selfish, he leaves Enoch and Edna because he had an affair. Enda describes him as trustworthy, easy-going person who didn’t notice when somebody was upset, but when he did, he accused that person of upsetting him. Enda is also selfish, her plan was to live with her sister until she found a job and a room, so she could leave her family behind. The relationship between Enda and Jack was very weak. They didn’t have anything in common, but nevertheless they had been married for 10 years. Enoch’s grandmother, and Enoch’s fathers’ mother, is caring and come. She takes everything

Theme: When a young boy is confronted with problems, they show more courage then the rest of us.

Title explained: refers to the two letters that Enoch, an 8-year-old boy, finds on the doormat when he returns home from school one day. These letters are left by his parents, who have both decided to leave him alone in the house.

Message: It is important to coop with problems instead of just running away. In this case a little boy loses both his parents, and this could have been avoided if the parents had talked to each other and had agreed to get a divorce instead of running away from the family and their problems.

Alice Munro, Runaway (2003)

Carla and Clark are a young married couple who live in a mobile home on a farm. They support themselves by giving horseback trail rides and riding lessons on their own horses and by renting stable space, food, and general care to other people's. While Carla is a high school graduate from an upper middle-class family who once planned to become a veterinarian, Clark is a dropout, wanderer, and sex symbol who's held a long list of odd jobs. Carla's family doesn't approve of him, but she ran away to elope with him instead of going to college, at least partly out of rebellion against their middle-class suburban lifestyle. However, she finds it difficult to live with Clark, who can be obsessive and surly, and who has a temper that has gotten him into trouble with various people in town. The couple live down the road from the much older Sylvia Jamieson, whose husband Leon has recently died. Carla reluctantly does house cleaning for her to earn extra money. Leon was a poet who once earned a major cash prize. During the final days of his life, he received hospice care at home, where Carla sometimes saw him. To tantalize her husband, she's told Clark a scandalous fabricated story in which Leon summoned her in to perform sexual favours (which she refused to do). This backfires as Clark becomes obsessed with getting hush money from Sylvia. Carla's only break from his pressure to do this occurs when their neighbour, Sylvia visits Greece. As the story opens, Sylvia returns from vacation and Carla hopes Clark won't find out right away, but he does and orders her to go clean the house again. Carla is upset by this and has a crying spell. Carla is also upset because Flora, their white pet goat, is missing. She and Clark originally got Flora to keep the horses’ company, but she and the goat have a special bond. At Clark's uncaring suggestion, she tries to convince herself that Flora has run away to mate but will return soon. Alice Munro, Runaway (2003) Carla and Clark are a young married couple who live in a mobile home on a farm. They support themselves by giving horseback trail rides and riding lessons on their own horses and by renting stable space, food, and general care to other people's. While Carla is a high school graduate from an upper middle-class family who once planned to become a veterinarian, Clark is a dropout, wanderer, and sex symbol who's held a long list of odd jobs. Carla's family doesn't approve of him, but she ran away to elope with him instead of going to college, at least partly out of rebellion against their middle-class suburban lifestyle. However, she finds it difficult to live with Clark, who can be obsessive and surly, and who has a temper that has gotten him into trouble with various people in town. The couple live down the road from the much older Sylvia Jamieson, whose husband Leon has recently died. Carla reluctantly does house cleaning for her to earn extra money. Leon was a poet who once earned a major cash prize. During the final days of his life, he received hospice care at home, where Carla sometimes saw him. To tantalize her husband, she's told Clark a scandalous fabricated story in which Leon summoned her in to perform sexual favours (which she refused to do). This backfires as Clark becomes obsessed with getting hush money from Sylvia. Carla's only break from his pressure to do this occurs when their neighbour, Sylvia visits Greece. As the story opens, Sylvia returns from vacation and Carla hopes Clark won't find out right away, but he does and orders her to go clean the house again. Carla is upset by this and has a crying spell. Carla is also upset because Flora, their white pet goat, is missing. She and Clark originally got Flora to keep the horses’ company, but she and the goat have a special bond. At Clark's uncaring suggestion, she tries to convince herself that Flora has run away to mate but will return soon. Meanwhile, the childless Sylvia feels a growing affection for Carla. When the tear-stained girl comes over to clean, Sylvia wants to help. Carla bursts into tears again and says she can't stand living with the cold and verbally abusive Clark. Sylvia devises a plan for Carla to run away to Toronto, where she can stay with Sylvia's friend. Carla agrees, borrows some clothes and money, and leaves that afternoon. However, on the way there, she panics, regretting her decision and feeling that she can't have a life or identity apart from Clark. She gets off the bus and asks Clark to come get her, and he does. He tells her he couldn't bear to lose her. Clark harasses Sylvia at her home in the middle of the night, returning the borrowed clothes and aggressively severing all ties with her. The terrified Sylvia apologizes. Then Flora suddenly appears on the scene, weirdly illuminated by a car's headlights, and scares both Clark and Sylvia into acting more friendly toward each other. Clark doesn't tell Carla about Flora's reappearance, but she finds out about it through an apologetic letter from Sylvia, who has moved away. Carla is angry because she strongly suspects that Clark killed the goat. She's traumatized, yet unwilling to leave Clark again, so she says nothing and goes

Title explained: told from the perspectives of women, many of whom are navigating difficult and sometimes tragic life events. One of the key themes of "Runaway" is the idea of escape and the search for fulfilment. The characters in the book are often struggling with the constraints of their lives and they frequently turn to escape as a way to cope. Whether it is through romantic relationships, travel, or simply the escape of their own thoughts, the characters in "Runaway" are in search of something that will bring meaning and purpose to their lives.

Concerns three runaways:

1. Carla, whose abusive husband, Clark, inspires her to run away

2. Sylvia, her neighbour who encourage Carla’s runaway attempt

   • Her husband passed away, and she comes to rely on Carla for help around her house and develops an obsessive concern for her abused friend.

   • She later moves to an apartment in the city.

3. Flora, Carla’s pet goat, who mysteriously vanishes and returns in supernatural fashion when Clark threatens Sylvia physically. She saves Sylvia and then vanishes again. After Carla returns to Clark, she finds Flora’s bones in the woods and speculates about how Flora died and then absolves Clark of any guilt.

==> she runs away from the truth; Flora’s fate could become hers