The heroes of his works were always simple and not very happy people, about which he wrote with warmth, compassion and hope for the best. Sarong was excited by universal issues and problems, the soul of simple little man. His stories celebrate optimism in the middle of trials and difficulties of the Depression-era. Several of Sarong’s works were drawn from his own experiences. The story under analysis is about a boy who realizes ,that his mother has died.
He absolutely alone and hopeless . He asks many rhetorical philosophic questions to himself , analyzes the world and realizes that nothing that he has had matters to him now. Finally he decides to burn the house. The story shows a little boy’s emotions ND psychological thoughts caused by moms death. He sits in front of the fire and realizes the bitterness of the world. The atmosphere is sad, dramatic .
There is a description of it in the beginning of the text : “It was so cold in the world, beyond the warm room, and the air was so clear you could hear it and when the Santa Fee crossing bell rang it was like churches, Sunday and peace in the world, quiet, and then the whole house, like the soft laugher of his father Jesse, trembled with the heavy weight and movement of the passing trainВ» . To emphasize the dramatic atmosphere the author applies polystyrene metaphor: “flowers of the fire” and simile: “The Santa Fee crossing bell rang like churches”, “house trembled like the soft laugher of his father” and polystyrene.
The symbol of fire plays a great role in this text. The fire gives warmth, symbolizes home, family, coziness , but in the same time it has the negative side, it can destroy everything on its way. The boy feels the emptiness and despair : the only safety in the world was in flames of the fire ; the whole world frozen and hushed; the whole world cold and sad » , the colors of fire are compared with flowers the flowers of the fire, blossoming a hundred times a minute, a whole world full of flowers В».
Red and yellow colors of the fire symbolize the brightness of the life he had. A boy recollects the moments of his life when his mother was alive. And now after her death everything becomes senseless ,cold and empty, the whole world is empty , the phrase В«the whole world” is repeated constantly. The description of feelings is emphasized by usage of polystyrene and repetition of the word empty : В« It was empty and she was dead.