Appointment in Samarra and A Pair of Tickets as Fables Essay

The Appointment in Samarra by W. Somerset Maugham is a fable narrated by death. This is what caught my attention to this clever fable. Most writers would not introduce death as a narrator from the beginning of the story like Maugham did and thats why this fable stands out to me from all others. This fable has a good and wise story value in my opinion. Its very creative and has enough details throughout this story to really understand what is going on with the characters. This fable is very easy to remember and re-tell. The moral of the fable is you cant escape your destiny no matter what you do or dont do, what is meant to happen will eventually happen. There is a movie called Final Destination that is about trying to cheat death. In the movie they manage to prolong the process of death by doing things and going about there day with a lot of caution and really being aware of there surroundings, it was working for a while but at the end of the movie the inevitable happens, death .The kids in the movie had a theory into cheating death, they figured that if they changed the order or sequence in which death occurs, they will throw off the course of death and stop death from happening. The movie was a little more imaginative and creative but at the end destiny was back on course. Proving that destiny can not be escaped. The fable does not bluntly tell you the moral but it was recognizable to the readers. In my perspective I do not see how another moral can be assumed because of the detail and the structure of the fable. Fables and short stories need different elements such as dialogue, setting and characters to build the plot, so the moral or lesson can be proven in a creative manner to the readers.

A Pair of Tickets is a short story by Amy Tan. She used appealing elements such as secrets between family members, shameful and complex decision making for mostly all the important characters and she also used real emotions with real life experiences to elaborate on the plot of the story which was very interesting. It was amazing because she made all these elements come together and made it realistic. Other cultures can relate to the situation and pain that this family had to endure through out their life. In order to illustrated real emotions for real life experiences Tan used Suyuan Li, youngest daughter Jing-meis guiltiness feeling for her mothers death and illustrated it by talking to her aunt and expressing her feelings of guilty Theyll think Im responsible, that she died because I didnt appreciate her (Tan 124) as if she just realized it and felt remorse for the first time. Jing-mei has been in a state of denial for such a long time that it took her mothers death and the reencountering of her step sisters to want to know about her culture and understand her family but it was too late; but yet she wanted to maintain her grief through unanswerable questions to assure herself that I had cared deeply enough. (Tan 128).

Fables are lesson to be taught through story telling, so the plot is very important to get the lesson across to the reader, which is usually children, so it is crucial to make a plot catchy and interesting. However, short stories have more ability to play with the plot so elements such as characters and proper introduction and role in the story is just as important in the plot as well as setting and dialogue. Each element such as plot, setting, character and dialogue is important to make the story functional. In perspective, I feel that the dialogue was the most important element in A Pair of Tickets and The Appointment in Samarra because it helped me understand and created a visual concept through the dialogue. The plot went hand in hand with the dialogue for both of these stories however; the dialogue made and built the plot accordingly to time and setting.

In conclusion, the plot is very important and essential to a story but elements such as characters, setting, dialogue, point of views, facts, and decision making are just as important to a story, so for the story to be functional, interesting and mostly importantly to be able to get the point across to the readers. The setup of these elements must be able to come together as one for the story to make sense and entertain the reader in the process.