A Term Paper

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This short story term report is on the book The Best American Short Stories 1960, “The Day of the Bullet”.

It first takes place in the sixties when Stanley’s wife is reading the newspaper and Stanley sees a picture of his old best friend, Iggy, on the front page. He grabs the paper and reads that Iggy has been shot. Then the story takes us back to the 1920s when Stanley saw Iggy last. Iggy loved golf, and he was always trying to save his money for a golf putter. Stanley and Iggy used to sneak off to a golf course to steal golf balls in the one of the course’s ponds. Then the author shaped a picture in my mind about the last time Iggy and Stanley were there. They saw the golf club owner, Mr. Rose, beat another man. The two boys decided that they should tell the police what had happened.

When they arrived at the police station and told the chief what had happened. He did not believe them, and he called Mr. Rose and Iggy’s father to question them. Iggy tried to get his father to back him up, but he wouldn’t. He agreed that Iggy is just trying to cause trouble.

Mr. Rose (pretending to be a nice guy) gave Iggy a dollar bill saying that he paid well if he wanted to help him do house chores. Later, as Iggy and Stanley were walking home, Stanley tried to convince Iggy to give the money to his father for better use. Iggy refused to give the money to his father and commented that he wouldn’t because his father wouldn’t back him up in the first place. That night, Iggy moved away.

In a way, the message is similar to the “don’t judge people by their looks” cliche, except in this case, the judgment is made by age instead of appearances. People come in all different personalities, and just because a child is younger than an adult doesn’t mean the child is mischievous or wrong. It may be more likely because people tend to mature as they age, but still you can’t judge someone by just their age. It sort of brings up the subject about people going through mental stages in their lives, and nobody is excactly the same place.

On the other hand though, I could be wrong because there is no proof in the story that Iggy has not caused trouble before.

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