Today, we will read Sticks by George Saunders. It’s a flash fiction of 392 words.
You can read the short story online here.
About the Author
George Saunders is the award-winning author of eleven books. His book, Lincoln in the Bardo, won the 2017 Man Booker Prize for best work of fiction in English. He was named one of the world’s 100 most influential people in the world by Time magazine in 2013. You can read his stories that have appeared regularly in The New Yorker since 1992. The story Sticks that we will read and discuss today is from his award-winning short story collection ‘Tenth of December.’
Sticks By George Saunders Analysis
Flash fiction is tightly bound and compact, ranging from 5 to 1500 words. Typically characterised by action and flightiness, flash fiction for the reader means instant gratification. You mindlessly consume and relish the story without overthinking it. In a flash!
But Sticks by George Saunders sticks out from the crowd of fluffy-light flash fiction. There is no way you can just read the story and move on. This tiny tale will have you peeling and pondering over its several layers like the deeper cores of the earth—much longer after you’ve read it.
The story is about a quirky father, narrated through the lens of his adult son. His father has an irrational overt obsession with a metal pole.
The story begins with the father decking the metal pole for the Christmas season on Thanksgiving night.
“Every year Thanksgiving night we flocked out behind Dad as he dragged the Santa suit to the road and draped it over a kind of crucifix he’d built out of metal pole in the yard.”
The story then gives us more glimpses into the father’s psyche as he switches the pole’s decor for every event. Be it the Super Bowl, Fourth of July, Veterans Day or Halloween.
“The pole was Dad’s only concession to glee.”
As the story quickly unfolds, we see hints of a dysfunctional family. A control-freak father with anger issues.
“We were allowed a single Crayola from the box at a time. One Christmas Eve he shrieked at Kimmie for wasting an apple slice.”
Questions run through one’s mind now. Was the father abusive as well?
“The first time I brought a date over she said: what’s with your dad and that pole? and I sat there blinking.”
The trauma carries forward to the next generation.
“We left home, married, had children of our own, found the seeds of meanness blooming also within us.”
You feel sick to the stomach as the reader when you realise this vicious cycle of abuse and trauma might never end in the family. Unless someone in the bloodline ends it by healing and choosing to be and do better.
Then, you see the father slowly slip into regret and a change of heart perhaps when he lives in an empty nest. The pole, which was earlier decked up in all gaiety during the Holidays, starts taking even stranger, complex, and morose forms.
“Mom died and he dressed the pole as Death and hung from the crossbar photos of Mom as a baby. We’d stop by and find odd talismans from his youth arranged around the base: army medals, theater tickets, old sweatshirts, tubes of Mom’s makeup.”
We get to see the father’s tender human side as he expresses his innermost feelings increasingly rabidly towards the end of his time. We see grandiose displays of love, guilt, and regret via the pole.
“He ran lengths of string between the pole and the sticks, and taped to the string letters of apology, admissions of error, pleas for understanding, all written in a frantic hand on index cards. He painted a sign saying LOVE and hung it from the pole and another that said FORGIVE?”
But you know what’s the most gut-wrenching part of the story? You have to read the concluding line to find out.
George Saunders’s Sticks is a must-read story that’s laden with imagery, metaphors, and subtext. To me, the metal pole is a metaphor for life.
“For dust thou art and unto dust shalt thou return.”
Genesis 3:19
A mere two-paragraph story that packs a lot of solid punches.
short stories are really trickier to write. I loved your analysis. reminds me of the one story i had read during school, about old man and sparrows. don’t remember the title though
Thank you so much, Ruchi for stopping by, reading and commenting. Let me search for that story now. 🙂
Yes, the story is a little somber and leaves a nagging feeling in our minds. But your analysis is very good. I liked it better than the flash fiction actually.😍
Hahaha! Thank you so much, dear! The analysis is good because the story is so. Keep reading. 🙂
Loved the story sombre yet deep and your analysis too
Deepika Sharma
Thank you so much, Deepika! Good to hear you liked the story and the analysis too. Keep reading! 🙂
Poignant for sure! Great analysis by you. Looking forward to reading more flash fiction throughout the month.
Thank you so much, Shalini! Glad to hear that. I’m looking forward to reading healthy and tasty recipes in your blog, and trying them. #BlogchatterA2Z 🙂
Well this story does get you thinking. I personally feel the father was just quirky and the pole was his way of engaging with the world…. I didn’t think he was mean frankly….
Doesn’t it? The son mentions the meanness is now part of him too. But we see a flawed human being in the father. Filled with remorse towards the end. He had an issue with emotional intimacy with his family. I don’t think he was a bad man. A bad father perhaps…or husband not sure. But he was self-aware towards the end. Thanks for reading and sharing your thoughts. Keep stopping by! 🙂
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Loved the analysis and the story especially towards the end painfully tugs our heart. Was he really a bad man? How do we define bad?
We would never know the story of the father, and his POV. But it’s a story that reminds us that all humans are essentially flawed. In that case as you said, how does one define bad? 🙂
Agree with you, Tina.
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[…] started with Sticks by George Saunders that makes you explore the complexity of the human psyche and empathize with its […]
I am actually leading a discussion lesson in school about that short story and your analysis really helped me. Thank you and well done!
Hi Tim! It’s lovely to hear that my story analysis was resourceful for you. Best wishes for the discussion. 🙂