The Refugee by PearlS.

Buck

Genre: social problem disaster

heme: the ahicmath ofa natural
etting: ciy in China; flood
Characters old man, noodle vendor, passer-by

An old man, too old for the heavy burden he is carying, is the last of the procession. He can
sits down ncar a stand selling
hardly keeP up the onen. cWhen he can
hardly keep up with the
othen. n nod longerofers he some
go onhim coins, although he
hotnoodles. man pas
A
to come from. The old man is
reluctant e o
himself does no knoww eeear and so explains the situation. He says
he no th e river ro9c and they had no food let. In desperation
Nat nis po ie hed en houcht fo planting the land. He takes pains to Ociena
they even hner and too inexperienced to think of the fulure
n e y were 0o hungry and loo inexpenenced

althougn he wamed tnem not io eat tne seed.

he pasey drops a silver coin and a copper penny into the old man's apron and goes on his
all the on food, but
way. 10 eDoo
o00
old
ven00rs surprisedles
the to man
his small spend whom money
does grandson,
not
he is carrying in on
Te w mother and father had died in the floods and the old man is now
looking ater the child. He himself only eats the few scraps left by the boy. Then he hands the
ed vendo. who cannot undérstand why a starving man with a silver
ore food for himself. The old man explains that the rest of the money is
for seed. He sys thai the best thing he can do for his grandson is to buy seed to ensure agains
e sarvaion the following year.

The flooding of the river has forced the famers of an unnamed country to leave their
homelands and look for food and shelter in the capital a few hundred miles away. The city is
fall of ragged and starving refugees and nobody realy knows how to cope with the prooiem.
They have to live in great camps outside the city wall trying to find work and food. The
situation is causing a lot of bitterness among the local inhabitants

One day some new refugces arive. They are different irom the othes in that they are not
"riff-raf from some community
always poor
from the same region and are well-built ncadyandandeasly
ced starving in a noo0me.
e . They ya are all
take pride
themselves, their hooeless sitution
despite that they mest have perihed Bnd obviously
ininfants, which suggests s and no.
e 0ods while still working in
the fields. All of them cary beddine and c o rce in any of
of foodAround
them. The
The lack
lack of
of food
food shows in their
shows in and iin their apethy S
their faces and towards the things
them.
them.

Scanned with CamScanner

the potental role of

H.G. Wellss The Slolen Bacillus" isa satirical
short story about
and sclentists in facilitating bio-terrorism.
This is done by having a very
science the consequences of his work.
I often
ntelligent bacteriologist being ignorant about
think thal some sclentists are so invoved with whether or not they can do something
wells s
that they do not bother considering whether or not they should do something.
The character is obviousiy
that exact point with the becteriologist in the stony.
making
intelligent when it comes to his held. Hels capable of working with these dangerous
but he
biologicals, and he understands how easily they could wipe out a population,
doesnt consider that someone might actually do t. He's ignorant about motivations o
people like the anarchist.

The anarchist steals a vial of bacteria and nuns out. The bacieriologist runs after the
man. His wife is appaliled at his appearance and runs after her husband with his shoe
coat, and hat. The anarchist breaks and ingests the bacteria, and the scientist lets hi
90

R tums out the bacteria is not a population kiling machine. The only reason the
bectemlologlst gave chase was because he didnt want to have to start his work over
again. The final few paragraphs realy drive home the satire of the story, because Wel
does a great job of portraying the bacteriologist as an absent minded professor. He's
unaware of his clothing appearance. He is bothered by the "trouble and expense of
preparing some more" bacteria. He is no at all concemed about the possibility that th
anarchist very well could have gotten a hold of some very deadly disease. Wels reall
mekes his reader consider the fact that t is possible that there are scientists working
over the place with a variety of deadly concoctions with no consideration for security
the potentlal consequences of their work.