1940-1949: A Look Into Their Time

"Miami-New York"-Martha Gellhorn

Around the time that this piece was written, America was officially becoming involved with the war.  In this story, the narrator talks about the plane ride home from a base where she was visiting her man.  On the plane are many people, or men, that had served in the war.  This connection between the time period and the story make great connections of what the time was in the 40's.
Another thing that shows the time periods of the 40's was one of the very first scenes we are given.  "The man, finding her face closed against him, turned away, pulled a package of cigarettes from his pocket, and made a great distance between them, smoking and looking straight ahead." (265)  Now-a-days, there is no smoking allowed on planes, no matter what.  Even if you served in the war, there are no exceptions.  When about to lift off in a plane, the no smoking lights will even pop on.  In 1998, smoking was finally banned on flights.  


"The Peach Stone"-Paul Horgan

The way that Horgan writes shows that he is a character-driven author.  In his stories, he cares deeply for the development of people inhabiting his stories.  This is shown very good in "The Peach Stone."  Horgan shows us all of his characters, giving us great detail about them all.  Throughout the story, he then gives us development of his characters.  We learn more about them, more about their problems, and more about what's going on around them.


"The Hitch-Hikers"-Eudora Welty

The story "The Hitch-Hikers" is about a man, well known, who picks up hitch-hikers.  The two men that Harris picks up one evening are anything but normal.  One of the men carries around a guitar, and the other man doesn't talk.  After Harris picks up the two men, he brings them out for a bit to eat, and soon after he finds a place for the two men to sleep, a hotel owned by a friend by the name Mike.  Once everything is all set up and Harris has found a spot of the men, he goes out to his truck, that wasn't there because the two men had decided to take it, to tell the men, when he sees something that wasn't expected.  The quiet man had hit the other man with the guitar in the head.  Now their concern was to get him to the hospital and to question the quiet man on what the heck had happened.

The way the Eudora writes is often happy, full of love, celebrates childhood, and has the idea that people can be saved or changed.  To compare the way Eudora writes and her story "The Hitch-Hikers," the theme here is that people can be saved or changed.  Harris, the good man that he is, picks up these two hitch-hikers, hoping to save them.  Hoping to save them from a long walk, a empty stomach, and a dry mouth.  Only to his surprise after helping the men, they have changed his whole outlook.