The three short readings have points in common. It is interesting to analyze every part of the stories and try to compare each other.
First of all, it is important to emphasize the sentimental side that these three readings have. If we want to highlight one of the characteristics that have in common, we need to compare the central ideas of the stories.
The first of the three stories is “Thucydides”. Overall, the central idea is about a seventeen years-old adolescent who was obsessed with a book about Greece. The most interesting characteristic of this story is the end. The critical outcome of the narrative shows a sad girl who just discovered the cheating that her father was committing. This situation made the girl shyer and she try to hide her grief and pain. She became an alone person and this characteristic can be compared with the others readings.
Dingo was the story of a wild dog called Lucky and its owner. Clearly, in this reading we can see the sadness and the desolation which the man lived. The only holy possession that the man had was his dog, Lucky. He didn’t end his studies and for this he couldn’t find a good job. His shelter was Lucky, but the dog was wild on itself and one day escape. With this situation the man was completely alone in the world.
In the story of the German Boy also we can find an example of loneliness. The narrator was a solitaire person and the German boy too. They were the kind of people that hide their feelings.
The hide of feelings is another aspect that these stories have in common. As we know, in Thucydides the girl always hid her feelings. Since she saw her father with a woman different than her mother, she became a hard person and never told her dad that she was around when he was with that unknown woman.
Something different but related with the hide of feelings occur in the story of Dingo. The owner of the dog should deny in front of the people his love for the dog, because the animal was not very appreciated for some people. If he wanted to be with his dog, should be almost hidden.
“The German Boy” also has the situation. The protagonist should also try to help his friend when he was crying on his bedroom. That shows that his was hiding his feelings.
The friendship is an important topic in relation to these texts. In the first story, the girl does not have friends, just for her obsession with the book. For this reason, she enjoyed most of the time by herself reading, mostly.
In “Dingo” was different but is still related with the friendship. The only friend that the man had was his dog, and for that reason he loved it. However, for many things that the people around him was saying, he should be with Lucky no matter the people said.
“The German Boy” is a story that could show on a right way the friendship. Klaus and the narrator were close friends until the end. They had a confidence each other, like in the part where Klaus was crying, and the hug of his friend could help.
The loyalty is also a topic that these three stories have in common but in different perspectives. In the “Thucydides” short reading, the loyalty is a value that it is broken. The relationship of the father of the protagonist with another woman shows a loyalty and a relationship broken. The second story has loyalty too. The fidelity of Lucky with its owner have been broken after the dog stay away, but they had been always very closed and for that reason couldn’t be taken like a treason. In “The German Boy” the loyalty could be found in the relation between Klaus and the protagonist and showed like the loyalty between friends.
Some differences that are very important to analyze are the economical and cultural difference between the stories. In the first one, we found a girl that lives in a normal house with a dad that worked and a mom on house. In “Dingo” the man should work very hard to have money to survive and also he was completely alone. In the third story, the German Boy was a very rich person, but had not a very happy life. The narrator of the reading also had a good economical situation but then this changed.
The absence or the existent of a family in all the stories is a good point to analyze. The story “Thucydides” has a protagonist and her family as main characters. The relationships were supposedly normal, but the infidelity of her father changed all. As we know, at the end of the reading the protagonist was crying, but she couldn’t say anything about the scene that she saw. Another situation related to a family we could find on “Dingo”. However, here is the absent of a family. The loneliness that the protagonist had living during the text shows that need for affection. His only company was his dog, and then the animal stayed away just for follow its instinct. The man stayed alone because the dog comes back with the group of wild dogs. The third story shows a nice friendship and a family involved too. The German boy had a family which traveled from Germany to try to create a new life. However, the only company that the German boy had was his friend.
Like a conclusion, these three texts show different ways to live and to feel. If we want to link and compare the three readings it is a hard work, because they are very different each other. Although this work was hard, the search and analysis of differences and similarities could have a good ending. These short readings was useful not just for something extremely academy, the orthography and redaction, but also to showing us a variety of feelings, the hurt, the loneliness, the fidelity, the values of the family and the friendship, and the most important of all: The love.
