Response on Chapter 10

This chapter deals with the themes of short stories and how to approach them. I find the first short story entitled A Man Told Me the Story of His Life by Grace Paley very interesting. It is a story about a man, named Vincent, who dreamt of becoming a doctor when he was seventeen years old. So he learned “every bone, every organ in the body”. However, his teachers convinced him to become an engineer since he did a good job on his math tests. Later in the text, one learns that Vincent has even saved his wife’s life. His wife was sick and Vincent checked his books and told the doctor what his wife was suffering from and that she needed an operation soon.

It is very interesting to see how other persons somehow can decide about which path you’ll take. The character in the story trusted his teachers because he knew not better. But the text gives no concrete clue whether they and even the headmaster pushed him in only one direction without considering some other test.

At the end, Vincent tells about that he had lead a good life- he had a good job, a wife and three children. However, I find this statement extremely questionable. What if he had fulfilled his dream of becoming a doctor? And what about other people who suffer from a decision others had made for them? The passage about his good life makes the authorities being right. But on the other hand, saving his wife’s life shows his real vocation.