Brushed Over

In short fiction, class and poverty along with feelings, moods, and attitudes are represented in a more simplified way. An example of this is in the short story The Night Train at Deoli’ when Ruskin runs into the girl at the train station. As he purchases a basket from the girl he “hardly dar[es] to touch her fingers”. Later in the story, we find out that Ruskin develops an emotional relationship for the girl who he previously did not want to touch and even goes out of his way to ask the girls location when he cannot find her on his next stop through the town. At the beginning of this short story, the feeling arises that the girl is of lower class and in poverty selling baskets for her “living” because of the fact that he did not want to touch her possibly “dirty” hands and the fact that her “feet were bare and her clothes were old”. Towards the end of the story when Ruskin develops emotions for the girl, it seems as if he was simply acting in an immature way as if the girl would have given him “cooties”. I feel that short stories allow for poverty to go under looked.