Challenge 445

Who’s Got the Function?

In Farida Samerkhanova’s “Never Trust Witches”:
1. At one level, the story recounts Belinda’s practical joke on the narrator, one that ends badly. Rewrite the ending as comedy.
2. At another level, the story raises questions about unearned guilt and moral responsibility in an out-of-body experience. How might the narrator’s wife react if he confesses that he has “cheated” on her as a rabbbit? How might the narrator feel if he finds her in bed with Elmer Fudd?
In Bertil Falk’s “The Man Who Turned Darwin Upside Down”:
1. Is the ideology of social Darwinism correct in holding that the “fittest” are the strongest and smartest? Or are the Darwinists correct in observing that the “fittest” are the best adapted to their environment?
2. Is Arthur Bjorkland smart and strong or has he adapted to his environment? Can he really function in society without money? How can he pay the registration fees at the conferences he attends?
3. Might Arthur Bjorkland use his talents more profitably than as a scavenger? Or is the story a satire on academia and a sardonic commentary on conferences?
In S. J. McKenzie’s “Great Hand”:
1. Does this retold folk tale or legend seem to convey a moral? If so, what might it be?
2. What is the function, if any, of the female apparition? If it were removed, would the story change in any significant way?
In Richard Ong’s “Dead Nightingale”:
1. What might it mean that the story concludes with a reference to a mosquito bite?
2. The characters Bill Foley and Hannah Moraine appear and disappear unaccountably. Is the mystery relevant to the story? Would the story change in any signficant way if the two characters came and went normally?
In Glenn Blakeslee’s “A Man and a Horse”:
1. Is the paragraph beginning “He knew the angry conspiracy of the ConFormity...” an adequate explanation of Pell’s plight? Or is it an ironic concession to the principle of cause and effect?
2. At the end, Pell has been changed into grass. Why does the horse not change?
3. Does the story have some symbolic, possibly allegorical meaning or does it illustrate literally a proverbial saying about watching grass grow?
In Mary B. McArdle’s Give Them Wine:
1. At the moment of a crucial decision, Donas engages in a lengthy interior monologue:
  “I could go inside! I could find out once and for all if there is anything to fear about these people! Better that I do it before I am wed — then there will be nothing to come between me and my love for Lionel — and our happiness.”
  
  Have Donas’ sentiments not yet been established well enough to be taken for granted? If so, is the reiteration maudlin or simply unnecessary? Even disregarding Lionel, doesn’t Donas already have enough motivation to investigate the mysterious Storytellers’ Hall?
2. Donas’ message to Heath is unsettling but quite vague. Does it justify Heath’s abandoning his post? What else might he do in order to secure a replacement?
3. Subsequent events may explain Heath’s actions, but under normal circumstances wouldn’t he and his fellow guardsman be subject to military discipline for inattention to duty?
4. Someone appears to have been lying in wait for Donas on the second floor of the Storytellers’ Hall. At this point, who do you think it might be? The unnamed speaker’s words are ironic; do they seem sympathetic or threatening?

Responses welcome!