Short Story Heft

Words: 462
Pages: 2
Open Document
In the story “Heft”, burdens play a big role in the entirety of the story. Everyone in the story has a burden. For example, Charlene’s addiction is a massive burden that she has. After I read this story, I believe that everyone has a burden in this world. When someone has another person to share their burdens with, then they don’t feel like they are trapped by their burden and can relieve stress and anxiety. Due to the major impact of burden in this story, I believe friendship is the main theme of the story. To begin, Arthur Opp lives an isolated life inside of his apartment. Arthur’s burden is obesity and is the reason why he is isolated. After he was convicted of dating one of his students in a university, he quit and stayed in his apartment …show more content…
His mother is a drug and alcohol addict and struggles to make money. Kel has to make money in the family and the roles between parent and child are switched. To cope with the burden, he plays baseball and wants to become a professional baseball player. This brings another burden because he wants to become a baseball player but he knows that he has to care for his mother. Similarly, because he doesn’t have a real family of his own, he tries to search for a family and home. When he learns that Arthur is his father, he finally finds who his dad is and has a family.

Moreover, Charlene’s burden is to drugs and alcohol. She wants to be a good parent, but because of her addiction, she cannot. This is shown when Charlene asks Arthur to tutor her son showing that she wants to help but she can’t do it herself. This burden creates a dysfunctional family and a bad environment for her son where Kel has to take care of her. In the end she cannot stand the burden and the stress so she suicides by overdosing.

In conclusion, all of these examples show how having someone to share a burden greatly increases happiness. When you keep your burden to yourself, it is almost impossible to be happy and makes you feel like a bomb just waiting to explode. In the end, Arthur and Kel come together and finds friendship in one other to remove their
Show More

Related Documents: Short Story Heft

“Linking the Learning's of Bhagavad-Gita with Corporate Human Resource Management Practices” Essays

Title “Linking the Learning’s of Bhagavad-Gita with Corporate Human Resource Management Practices” Author Nishant Saxena Assistant Professor-HR Disha Institute of Management and Technology, Raipur Abstract: It is widely acknowledged that religion has a powerful influence over the human behavior. Human beings carry these learning’s to organizations, may be, in a dormant fashion. All religions have put forth basic guiding principles and tenets for mankind to follow. An interesting…

Words 4225 - Pages 17

Philip Seymour Hoffman

Philip Seymour Hoffman (July 23, 1967 – February 2, 2014) was an American actor and director. Although primarily a supporting player, Hoffman was known as a versatile performer who brought depth and humanity to all of his roles. He was prolific in both film and theater from the early 1990s until his death at age 46, after which the New York Times declared him "perhaps the most ambitious and widely admired American actor of his generation".[1] Raised in Fairport, New York Hoffman studied acting at…

Words 6352 - Pages 26

The Epithet in the Novel "Jane Eyre" Essay example

whoо does not notice the style, difficultly perceives images and ideas, does not feel colours of a picture, does not see it completely and in effect does not understand.'' The word Style is derived from the Latin word ''stilus'' which meant a short stick sharp at one end and flat at the other used by the Romans for writing on wax tablets. Now the word Style is used so many senses that it has become a breeding ground for ambiguity. The word is applied to the teaching…

Words 18865 - Pages 76