Frank Collymore's "Some People are Meant to Live Alone" & Alfred Mendes's "Pablo's Fandango"

     In both of these short stories, we see main subjects who are sharing some similar experiences. This experience is the loneliness and isolation that is paralleled in both stories. In Collymore's story Uncle Arthur shares a story that ends up being his own where he says, "He decided marriage wasn't meant for him. No, sir. He could do just as he pleased. No wife to nag him, no people dropping in to talk and talk when he wanted to be left alone, nobody to remind him of what he had to do, what he ought to do, what he must do. It was delightful." Uncle Arthur is the one who delivers the message that is in the title that, 'Some People are Meant to Live Alone' and he proves that to be true when an old friend moves in and aggravates him to the boiling point of him strangling and killing him. 

    In the other story, we see a man, Pablo, who is isolated from society in a different way and does not necessarily want to be in the same way that Uncle Arthur does. The story says, speaking of where Pablo lives, "Up there was very far from everywhere and everybody. And he was alone. It was folly to be alone up there. He would have somebody to share his shanty with him now. But who?" Pablo is a person who is so dedicated to his work and crops and the profit that comes with this, that until he eventually receives a much larger than usual sum of one hundred and twenty-six dollars and forty three cents, he is usually cut off from the rest of the village for the most part.

    These stories and even Rhys' Pioneers, Oh, Pioneers give us an idea of how 'outcasts' are treated in these communities. Three different men, mostly keeping to themselves for different reasons, all looked at as 'different' from the rest of the community. Uncle Arthur has almost become like an old legend and mystery in his community with Bill's mom threatening to send him to Uncle Arthur's house which is described as "a house that loomed gaunt and cockeyed against the brooding background of the two huge twisted evergreens that added their touch of mystery to his unaccountable isolation." How these people are looked at makes me wonder more about the more general populations on the islands. Are they all more similar to one another and not as distinct or different in there ways as people like Uncle Arthur or Pablo?

-cs

Comments

  1. Spencer PetersSeptember 9, 2020 at 12:45 PM

    It seems like a lot of these Caribbean/ post colonialism stories have a theme of loneliness and the sense of people being outcast-ed in their own society

    ReplyDelete
  2. BryceF112September 9, 2020 at 12:46 PM

    Isolation and loneliness are common themes that do parallel greatly. The two characters are similar yet different. One man isolated from society by choice and another is isolated based off his past.

    ReplyDelete
  3. UnknownSeptember 9, 2020 at 12:46 PM

    Love the comparison between books! Maybe add another paragraph when sifting into a new topic.

    ReplyDelete
  4. Nicholas ZanghiOctober 2, 2020 at 1:54 PM

    A major takeaway from these works is the theme of “otherness.” In the story, Some People Are Meant to Live Alone the character Uncle Arthur is presented as a man who has chosen to live alone, in isolation from all people including his family. Yet, the reality of his situation is that he was "othered" by the people in his life. Due to his differences, he is cast out and seen as “not normal.” We can see this in various aspects of the world’s history. An example is the slave trade, where people of color were seen as lesser than. They are "othered" because of their skin color and were owned and abused in the past. The theme of "otherness" can be associated with colonial/postcolonial times where we see world powers take advantage of and “other” people who they deem lesser than them.

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