A Silver Dish (Masterplots II: Short Story Series, Revised Edition)
At a glance:
- Author: Saul Bellow
- First Published: 1978
- Type of Plot: Psychological
- Time of Work: The mid-twentieth century
- Setting: Chicago
- Principal Characters: Woody Selbst, Morris Selbst, Mrs. Skoglund
- Genres: Psychological fiction, Short fiction
- Subjects: Family or family life, Memory, Parents and children, Self, Fathers, Generation gap
- Locales: Chicago, IL
The Story
After his father's death, Woody Selbst feels a yawning emptiness in his life. At the age of sixty, he is deeply disturbed by questions about the meanings of life and death. In his period of mourning, he recalls a trip to the White Nile, where he had seen a buffalo calf being seized by a crocodile while the parent buffalo looked on without understanding what was happening. Their brute grief now helps him to cope with his own.
As Woody reflects on his own life, his father's, and their unusual relationship, the story reveals the contours of Woody's imagination and...
[The entire page is 1733 words long]
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