Analyse af novellen 'A Fortune'

The short story ”A Fortune” is written by author Joy Monica and was available in year 2000. It is a story of a man who pickpockets and then discovers a little boy wandering the street alone. It is the same boy, whose father’s wallet, he stole some time earlier. The narrator grew up in a trailer park; the family did not have a lot of money. This is one of the reasons for his father teaching him pick pocketing in the age of five. The title “a fortune” refers to the little kid and the narrator. They are the fortune, which has not been discovered by their own families. The only person who understands the narrator’s qualities is the little kid, and the other way around. The Narrator is a person who lives by himself. He spent his childhood with his mother; she was constantly crying and was feeling bad for her little boy.The story is told by a first person narrator in a lower class English using a lot of slang such as: “D’you wanna see something?” This linguistic style supports the point of view of the text as being very subjective. As well, the narration is quite childish when the narrator tries to be reflective: “It’s just that, it must be nice, you know, to be found.” The narrator, which in this case is the main character, is a young man who has had a hard childhood. His father taught him to steal when he was 5 years old and he has been pickpocketing ever since. The narrator of the text is a young man, might be in his mid-twenties. As a result of his harsh childhood with no role models and because he was raised in an environment with poverty.Throughout the story, the narrator is undergoing some type of development. He gets sloppy and creates a bond with the kid, where both expansions are new to him. The relationship with the kid also changes how the narrator feels in general. In a psychological view, he also sublimates all of his negative energy and hatred against his father into encouraging actions. They have both been let down by their fathers and therefore the narrator is doing everything to the kid that his father has failed doing to him. He gives the kid all of his beloved fortunes, in contrast to his own father and the money, which Pop, kept for himself.When reading a short story like this the title always gives us some expectations about the contents. It can have a concrete meaning or a symbolic meaning. The most obvious is that The Fortune is the cardboard box of money. Fortuna was the name of the Goddess of Happiness, so his love for the fortune cookies, could also be that he searches for happiness. Besides that, the cookies make him happy and as he comments, I just want to share my fortune; I believe that he wants to share this happiness with his mother who, after all, is alright. The ambiguous meaning of the word is best expressed at the end.I believe the main theme in the story to be love – and that between a father and a son. It is these lack of love and extreme effort of force from the two fathers that have made their sons into what they are today – a criminal, and a very quiet child. The authors’ message is that it’s not only people with bad economic accessibility (like the narrator) who have a bad relationship with their sons. The exact opposite is also the case (the kid).