Monthly- Archives: July 2026

July 26, 2026


NATALIE LIU

The Way Up to Heaven: Spoiler Alert – only read this if you have already finished the story.

            “The Way Up to Heaven” by Roald Dahl is focused on two married old folks, Mrs. and Mr. Foster. Mr. Foster treats his relationship with Mrs. Foster like a mean sibling would, purposefully using Mrs. Foster’s fear of being late to pull a prank that extends the necessary time to stay. Reading this feels like you’re watching a slow-motion car crash and want the collision to complete. Dahl immediately hooks you in with Mrs. Foster being all dressed up and packed, waiting; she has a “pathological fear of missing a train, a plane, a boat”. My initial reaction to this was feeling irritated by Mr. Foster’s behavior, because his calculated delays felt agonizingly cruel. The reader’s experience mirrors Mrs. Foster’s distress in those moments, when a “tiny vellicating in the corner of the left eye, like a secret wink,” twitches as the clock ticks. The plot relies on a strict and rigid timeline, just like how Mrs. Foster always likes to be. In the story, you want to root for Mrs. Foster amid Mr. Foster’s negativity. This negativity is amplified by the household staff, who choose to side with Mr. Foster. While the driver openly states that Mr. Foster is delaying on purpose, the butler, Walker, demands he stop, pretending to be oblivious to the obvious pranks. By defending Mr. Foster and enforcing his false narrative, the staff effectively gaslights Mrs. Foster, deepening her isolation within her home. 

The plot uses a repetition of missing the gates and then the weather crisis, to build pressure and stress. The turning point is the next day, when Mrs. Foster goes to catch her flight again, and Mr. Foster has something to give to her for their grandchildren, a comb box. When Mrs. Foster catches his blatant lie, the power dynamic switches. Mrs. Foster gets into the house, yet after hearing a noise, she quickly runs out and directs the driver to leave. After a few months, she comes home and calls the elevator repair; Mrs. Foster has finally sought revenge. The irony of this all is that Mr. Foster chose to take the elevator to stall, but ended up dying in it, and along with the title, the way up to heaven shows Mrs. Foster’s new heaven-like experience on earth without the disturbance of her husband. 

July 16, 2026


TIMPER XU

In the short story “Afternoon in the Jungle”, Albert Maltz revealed the society under the Great Depression with an absurd fight between a thirteen-year-old child and “a small, shabby man of forty-five”.

Everything started with imaginative play: Charles Fallon threw imaginary missiles and picked up imaginary money, but then his dreams were interrupted by a lady who “came out and told him to stop leaning against the glass and move along”. His day became worse when he didn’t have money to buy the candy that he wanted; then, change suddenly came as neighbor Mr. Sheehy dropped a 50¢ coin (worth almost $15 in today’s money) when he was getting on a bus.

Due to the limited time, Mr. Sheehy told Charles that he’ll give him a dime if he could find the coin he dropped; Charles decided to find the coin, but he didn’t think of giving it back: “It would be the simplest thing in the world of course to tell Old Man Sheehy that he had not been able to find it”.  So he decided to borrow three pennies from his mother to buy chewing gum; then, he could fish the coin up with the gum. The main conflict of this story starts now.

Overall, Maltz’s story gives us a peek into the physical and psychological conditions that people went through in the Great Depression: readers can see how the collapse of the economy caused a once normal or even wealthy family to become penniless, how people like the “small, shabby man of forty-five” being forced to live off of picking up coins, how the Roaring ‘20s popped like the imaginative play Charles imagined. Indeed, entirely new industries were invented, such as high level scavenging. Picture to yourself the lengths this small man went in his pursuit of lost treasures: “Secured to the inside of his coat by leather straps were four lengths of broom handle, whittled to reduce their thickness, each about three feet long, each fitted at one end with a rubber socket by which it would be joined to another length”. Naturally he is better equipped for salvaging the 50¢ piece.

It isn’t only the life under the Great Depression that Maltz showed; what he also wanted the readers to feel is how extreme poverty and unemployment turn everyone (including children) into beasts that only care about money (this is why this story is named “Afternoon in the Jungle”). The change of Charles from a child who plays on the streets to a beast that “grabbed a chunk of ice” and “flung it” at a person for 50 cents is the strongest evidence and provides a snap back to the title, as does the last line: “Charlie stood trembling in triumph, his face turned to stone. It had become dark.”