As we already read about the secret to living happily from The Alchemist book by Paulo Coelho. Today we will look at two different stories from different books.
THE KITE RUNNER BY KHALID HOSSEINI
It was a dark little tale about a man who found a magic cup and learned that if he wept into the cup, his tears turned into pearls. But even though he had always been poor, he was a happy man and rarely shed a tear. So he found ways to make himself sad so that his tears could make him rich. As the pearls piled up, so did his greed grow. The story ended with the man sitting on a mountain of pearls, knife in hand, weeping helplessly into the cup with his beloved wife’s slain body in his arms.
This story must give you goosebumps but, the real conclusion is when Amir the protagonist and the narrator of the book The Kite Runner wrote this story and shared it with his friend Hassan, who is a servant’s boy of Amir’s family. Hassan was shocked and impressed with Amir’s story but, he asked why he has to kill his own wife, instead of he can shed tears by cutting onions?
MORAL: When you have to choose something… Choose wisely.
VERONICA DECIDES TO DIE BY PAULO COELHO:
Zedka started to narrate a story to Veronica.
A powerful wizard, who wanted to destroy an entire kingdom, placed a magic potion in the well from which all the inhabitants drank. Whoever drank that water would go mad.
The following morning, the whole population drank from the well and they all went mad, apart from the king and his family, who had a well set aside for them alone, which the magician had not managed to poison.
The king was worried and tried to control the population by issuing a series of edicts governing security and public health.
The policemen and inspectors, however, had also drunk the poisoned water, and they thought the king’s decisions were absurd and resolved to take no notice of them.
When the inhabitants of the kingdom heard these decrees, they became convinced that the king had gone mad and was now giving nonsensical orders. They marched on the castle and called for his abdication.
In despair the king prepared to step down from the throne, but the queen stopped him, saying:
‘Let us go and drink from the communal well. Then we will be the same as them.’
The king and the queen drank the water of madness and immediately began talking nonsense.
Their subjects repented at once; now that the king was displaying such wisdom, why not allow him to continue ruling the country?
After drinking water from the poisonous well all became mad and equal. The country continued to live in peace although its inhabitants behaved very differently from those of its neighbors. And the king was able to govern until the end of his days.
Zedka asked veronica: Do you know what exists outside beyond the walls of this asylum?
Veronica said People who have all drunk from the same well.
MORAL: Zedka and Veronica both are patients in the asylum. Through this story, Zedka symbolically tells that people think they are civilized and normal. But, when they encounter some strange people they started to divide the borders and make them as a patient.
SHORT STORIES WITHIN NOVELS http://eduindex.org/2021/07/24/short-stories-within-novels/
THE GOTHIC NOVEL http://eduindex.org/2021/07/21/the-gothic-novel/
