Gaston Theme Essay

11/12/13

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Theme Essay

Gaston Theme Essay

Orange ombre fruit, sheltered in fuzz. Such simplicity, yet is the world for the bug living in this juicy peach. The bug was torn from his moist, velvety home, and owned no authority but one worthy of squashing. Through this short story, Gaston by William Saroyan, Gaston’s identity may be revealed through similarities between Gaston and the lucky father who finds him.

The metaphor hidden between the lines of Gaston involving the father and Gaston himself is supported by many discreet yet sure pieces of information. As Gaston’s home is exposed through the father’s bite, he finds himself curiously crawling from the peach. The short story explains to the reader on page 195 that this place the father is calling home in the rainy, mucked up city of Paris is very temporary and far from stable. “The creature paused only a half a second, and then continued to come out of the seed, to walk down the eastern side of the peach to wherever it was going.” The father’s daughter is finding it hard to grasp the fact that Gaston is now homeless, and tries to explain to her father with a concerned, shaky voice that it would be okay for Gaston to live in the father’s Parisian house for a while. But the father quickly tells her that Gaston could never live in a human house comfortably. In this short story, the author, William Saroyan, has implied that at this point in time the father is feeling emotionally homeless as a result of being separated from his daughter who lives in New York with her mother. The father feels like Gaston, with no place of security or connections.

As the story moves along, the little girl is feeling persuaded by her socially competitive mother to come back to New York City and is informed by her mother that Gaston is just a bug worthy of squashing. The mother calls and proposes to the girl that she come back to New York, ending her visit with her father. The girl reluctantly agrees and emotionally squashes her father