Short Stories, Q2 W1 - The Waltz of the Fat Man

   The short stories we have been reading in English class have been really different from other short stories I have read. In all of the stories, except for A&P, someone is sick or dies or does something crazy. Maybe quitting your job at the A&P because your manager corrected girls in a bathing suit is not necessarily crazy, but it is a different choice. The fat man, Noe', joins the circus at the end of his story. Oh, and before that, a clock disappears. These stories are different in almost every way imaginable.

     The Waltz of the Fat Man was depressing to me. Noe' wants friends and he can't seem to make any. He lives in a town where people come to his store but only because he is the only butcher in town. He finally makes friends with clocks and then he becomes obsessed with them. Am I suppose to feel happy for him that he joined the circus? I think the story tells us he is happy in the end. The line that confuses me is, "and all the rest of the animals who danced". I don't want to think of Noe' as a dancing animal. It is just one of the short stories that I think is really different.