I Don’t Understand “a Christmas Memory” Short Story?

by Zoonie

Question by Gianna: I don’t understand “A Christmas Memory” short story?
The story’s by Truman Capote, and i don’t understand it. Does Buddy’s friend die at the end? I don’t understand the quote about God that she says something like She only thought you could truly see God before you’re sick, but she wagers it never happens… And, i just don’t understand why she even wants to make the fruitcakessss. Please helppp. I have homework on it -__-

Best answer:

Answer by pj
The easy answers… Yes “My friend” does die in the end. The fruitcakes were a holiday tradition for this elderly cousin. You’ll get a better understanding of the story if you can read some “overview” articles and literary criticism. Check out your local public or college library websites for the database called Literature Resource Center – or look in the library catalog to see if they have a set of books called “Short Stories for Students” (Vol. 2)

Here are a couple of character descriptions from Short Stories for Students:

Buddy : Throughout “A Christmas Memory” the narrator refers to himself only in the first person (I, me, myself), but his friend calls him Buddy “in memory of a boy who was formerly her best friend” and who had died when she was a child. Truman Capote said that Buddy is based on himself; as a boy, Capote indeed lived with an elderly, somewhat oddball cousin in a country house full of relatives. At the time the story takes place Buddy is seven years old, and his age influences the way he perceives the events going on around him. Despite his youth, he proves perceptive. Buddy understands that even though his friend is in her sixties, “She is still a child.” He lives with relatives in “a spreading old house in a country town,” but he and his cousin manage to remain somewhat separate from them. “We are not, on the whole, too much aware of them. We are each other’s best friend,” he says. By recognizing this, Buddy reveals his compassion for society’s outsiders, as his cousin is considered. Every Saturday she gives him a dime and he goes to the movies, which influences his decision to be a tap dancer when he grows up. Because his friend never goes to movies, Buddy tells her about them, thus honing his storytelling skills. Later, when he recounts that he has sent to military school the sensitive narrator breaks the nostalgic mood of the story and provides its bittersweet resolution: “home is where my friend is, and there I never go.”

My friend : Although she remains unnamed throughout the story, this “sixty-something” distant cousin is the narrator’s best friend. Capote said in interviews that he based this character on Miss Sook Faulk, an elderly cousin with whom he spent much of his childhood. Buddy’s friend is described as “still a child,” and it is her innocence which allows their friendship to occur. The narrator reveals her to be a very idiosyncratic person—one who possesses unusual characteristics—by stating the things she has never done: “eaten in a restaurant, traveled more than five miles from home, received or sent a telegram, read anything except the funny papers and the Bible.” She is also very wise, however, and it is she who teaches Buddy to value each individual object because “there are never two of anything.” She also helps Buddy to appreciate nature as the place where God reveals Himself to us everyday.

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The article overview also describes how the book is autobiographical and tells you a bit about Capote. It also breaks down the plot pretty well.

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In “A Christmas Memory,” the holiday fruitcake recipe includes a forbidden ingredient—whiskey. As Buddy explains in the story, state laws prohibited the sale of alcohol throughout the country. The passage in 1919 of the Eighteenth Amendment to the Constitution had made the manufacture, sale, and transportation (but not the use) of alcoholic beverages illegal, instituting the Prohibition period, which lasted until 1933.

Source (also from Literature Resource Center):
“Overview: “A Christmas Memory”.” Literature and Its Times: Profiles of 300 Notable Literary Works and the Historical Events that Influenced Them. Joyce Moss and George Wilson. Vol. 3: Growth of Empires to the Great Depression (1890-1930s). Detroit: Gale, 1997. Literature Resource Center. Web. 19 Dec. 2010.

You might be able to open a chat with a local librarian and get these articles emailed to you. I’ll check to see if you allow email and send them, if possible.

Chat services:
http://www.nypl.org/ask-nypl
http://www.spl.org/default.asp?pageID=info_help_ask

Know better? Leave your own answer in the comments!

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