Stolen Day

Have you ever lied about being sick or not feeling good so you could get out of something you didn’t want to do that day? I know that I have and I’m sure that other people have defiantly done that. In the short story called “The Stolen Day” by Sherwood Anderson, the main character lies about him having a disease that causes his muscles to ache. This disease is called inflammatory rheumatism. All the main character wanted to do was get out of going to school. He was actually jealous of the boy in his class, named Walter that had the disease because he got to miss school and go fishing and do fun things like that. The thing that was not smart is the main character only thought of the good things that Walter got to do, he never thought of the pain that he had to live through or all the sorrow he was put in because of his terrible disease. The main point of this story was to teach you not to lie because people will just find out and you will or could get in trouble.
Talking about the lesson should really make you think about how lucky you are. In the story the main character is so jealous of Walter because he doesn’t have to go to school and he gets to practically do whatever he wants to do in the main characters opinion. Too bad that’s not true because Walter doesn’t get to exercise or play sports like the main character got to do. He never thought about how lucky he was compared to Walter. So, the main lesson is no matter how bad you think or feel you got it there is always someone somewhere in the world that will have it worse than you. So if you think about it no matter what you say, you should consider yourself lucky.
Along with the lesson comes a very good theme. The theme is man vs. society. The reason it seems like man vs. society because the main character in the story, the person who is narrating the story doesn’t like school and doesn’t want to go to school, so he has to battle the society to get them to believe him that he has inflammatory rheumatism. If the main character would have been Walter than the theme would have been man vs. himself because Walter has to battle himself because his brain is saying stop your aching, you can’t go anymore but Walter just keeps pushing himself to keep going and going and going.
After hearing about the authors lesson, and theme from the story it was hard not to focus on the authors style of writing. The author really has a great writing form. He is very good at having a really good lesson in a story that will entertain you. If you read a book that is very entertaining but still has a good lesson you can defiantly learn from it. If you have something to do and you don’t want to do it just think about all the other people around the world, they didn’t want the natural disasters to come and demolish the land that they live on, they did not ask for people to take their own lives or for them to take family members lives. The lesson is to make you think about other people before yourself. Think about how lucky you are, and what can you do to help other people or make their lives better.
So, in conclusion this was a great story that has a very good lesson. One of the best. People need to stop being lazy and do things like go to school as much as possible because all it will do is help you in the future. Always give it everything you got. Look at Walter, you think it is hard to go to school or do chores, what do you think everyday life is like for Walter? To be in pain to walk, or even just sitting there. Not being able to run or play sports with all of his friends. Think about how lucky you are. Think about the stuff you have not the stuff you could have.