This is for the text "Little Sinner's" (down below) The question is "What is the theme of the story? Give two specific examples." Thank you!!! I'm reposting because I need more ideas please, you guys are awesome! Thank you!!!
Rafferty ran. Once in the alley he ran as fast as he could, and when he turned into St. Joseph Street he looked back in terror at Moulihan, who was running with his head back and with that short piece of pipe of his clutched in his fist as though it were a bit of a stick he was carrying in a relay race. And there was Briley behind Moulihan, urging him on.
“Run, run, run for your life,” called the little boy who was swinging on an iron gate as Rafferty scudded past him.
Rafferty put back his head and ran for his life.
This was an old race in nightmares, and just as now it was always Moulihan behind him. Moulihan and his little lead-filled pipe. But if this had been a nightmare, Rafferty would not have reached the end of the alley; the alley would have stretched on and on, and St. Joseph Street would always elude him, and Moulihan would come closer and closer. And Rafferty’s feet would barely move, though Moulihan’s would never bother to touch the ground at all as he would leap toward him. When he was younger he used to flap his arms as though they were wings in nightmares, and would soar away from the ogre at his heels.
But that was when he was younger and was optimistic and had optimistic dreams. That was before the ogre at his heels was Moulihan.
Now the reality was even worse than any of the nightmares in which he ran this terrifying race. Now he was running all right—he had got out of the alley; but now Moulihan would not just get closer and closer until Rafferty could wrench himself out of the dream. Now, how long would it be before Moulihan was actually upon him and that pipe was crashing down on his head?
When Moulihan was not too drunk, only as drunk as he was now, and when Moulihan was in a rage, he could do anything.
At this minute he wanted to kill Rafferty.
Rafferty ran. He skimmed over a vacant lot at the corner, and he was in Emmet Street alone, with no pounding feet behind him. He spurted to the other side before Moulihan came into Emmet, and he ran up another alley, turned left, ran through a yard and was out on Church Street, where there were five shops and two churches in the block. With one last dash he reached the door of St. Aloysius’ and whisked inside.
He snatched his battered hat from his head and slipped into one of the dark last pews and crawled under the seat and felt as though he were breathing his last.
In a few minutes he pulled himself up and peeped over the top of the pew and saw a nun standing in the aisle with her back to him, and twenty or thirty little boys filling the pews over by the confessional.
He looked back at the big door in trembling panic and darted out of the pew silently and into one nearer the nun and the boys, where he could huddle in front of a huge pillar.
Moulihan wouldn’t think of looking for him here yet. There were other places he would have to look first. He might not think of looking for him here at all. Who would think of looking for Rafferty in church? But then Moulihan would look everywhere. Even here. Rafferty wrung his hands and huddled in front of the pillar.
The nun moved down the aisle near the middle of the cluster of little boys. “You’ve had long enough to examine your consciences,” she said in a loud, pleasant whisper, and all the little heads turned toward her. Rafferty was vaguely aware that they looked like babies—couldn’t be more than seven or eight—and that their faces were full of purpose and concern.
“It will be only a few minutes before you are making your first confession,” the nun said gently. “We have prepared for this great moment for weeks, and now that it has come you must be at ease, children. You must welcome it.” She smiled at the intent little faces. “Say the Act of Contrition out loud and say it with all your heart.”
Still smiling she raised her wooden signal that looked like a little scepter, flicked it with her thumb, and it made a loud clack in the still church. “Now,” she said.
The little boys knelt noisily and put their heads on their precisely folded hands. “Oh, My God!” they piped in real remorse, “I am heartily sorry for having offended Thee, and I detest all my sins because I dread the loss of Heaven and the pains of Hell; but most of all, because I have offended Thee, My God, Who art all good, and deserving of my love.” Then, slowly and with painful intensity, they crawled from word to word : “I firmly resolve, with the help of Thy grace, to confess my sins, to do penance, and to amend my life. Amen.”
The nun clacked the signal again and the boys slid back onto the pews. Just then an old priest came out of the sacristy, crossed in front of the altar, and smiling reassuringly at the little fellows, made his way down the aisle to the confessional. The nun stood facing him, and behind her in the last row of boys a cap in a small clenched fist whipped up and stung the ear of a tiny fellow who was off his guard, and there was a sudden violent scramble in the pew and then quick stillness as the Sister turned around.
She pointed her signal at the first boy in the first pew and put her hand gently upon his shoulder. He stumbled into the aisle, hesitated, then scurried by the green curtain into the dark box. He came out almost at once after a rapid sibilance, and the nun looked at him in surprise as he went up to the altar rail, knelt, bowed his head as he said a fleeting penance, and bolted back to his place.
Rafferty still huddled tautly in front of his pillar. He had stolen the money Moulihan had stolen, the money that had not been divided with Briley, who had helped Moulihan steal it. He had stolen and spent Moulihan’s stolen money because he hated that great brute of a man who was a terrible one for gloating. For a long time Rafferty had been doing what he could to get the best of Moulihan, and up till now he had kept a whole head. Only God knows why.
When Moulihan won at cards—and he’d better win—he would snatch up the money, push the table upon the losers, and roar. He always looked upon another man’s misfortune as his own personal triumph, and he would laugh and gloat over another man’s trouble until everyone in Gaghan’s saloon was in torment.
With the utmost caution Rafferty had sometimes got to Moulihan’s “sure things” before Moulihan did. It was no wonder he was always running from Moulihan in his dreams.
Just now Moulihan had discovered that it was Rafferty who had stolen his money, had sneaked into his kitchen a week ago, because only a few minutes ago there was Rafferty by his stove, with his hands in his old broken tea pot, with his fingers hunting for more of Moulihan’s money. If Rafferty hadn’t thrown the old tea pot in Moulihan’s face, he never would have got that bit of a headstart up the alley.
Rafferty remembered the blood running from the gash in Moulihan’s forehead when he had turned to see how close he was. Then, in sudden panic, he thought he heard the church door open, but it was only one of the little boys who had kicked the footbench as he was going back to his place.
Crouched before the pillar, Rafferty wished he were in some dark hole of a cellar. He thought of Moulihan’s piece of pipe and he put his hands to his head. He longed to be under something, inside something strong and tight. He kept putting his hands on top of his head in an uncontrollable gesture of defense.
Why had he run into the church? There was nothing to get inside of here. Nothing to hide in but his own clothes. Grimly he thought that Moulihan had driven him to church. God knows he had been trying to drive himself here for years, but he’d never got any farther with that than with any of the other things he sometimes yearned to do. How many times had he wanted to go to confession and then felt more hopeless than ever?
Those little ones there, taking their little sins so gravely, made him feel that he had been crazy ever to think of himself kneeling before the priest like a good man—with the endless days and nights and years of his sins. His life was not for confessing. He was not a strong man who was not always strong enough for temptation and who had the vigor to come here to make himself stronger. His was the limp corruption of a futile man. Confession was for the blemished, not the decayed. More than once he had thought that if he could only make a good confession he could shuck off his past, start as fresh as a boy. If he were only clean he would certainly be another person. It had seemed as simple as that. Never had he been more of a fool. Absolution was for the clean in spirit. His life was a filthy raveled rag, beyond cleaning and mending.
As the little boys filed in and out of the confessional, he longed to be out of here. Any dark corner anywhere would be better than this. He rubbed his hand across his dry mouth, pulling at his face. He’d better get out of here to some safe, some covered, hole.
But he knew he couldn’t leave now.
From the confessional there came the thin small voice of one of the little ones who was so nervous that he had forgotten to whisper. “Bless me, Father, for I have sinned,” he piped gravely, and there was a loud titter from the boys in the pews. “I have been disobedient and disrespectful to my parents and superiors,” said the child, having got the words by heart from the “Suggestions for an Examination of Conscience.”
The nun stirred uneasily and wanted to warn the boy in the confessional. There was a moment’s silence, and then the piping began again. “Every Monday, Father, I come in church and hunt under the pews for the collection pennies that people drop on Sundays. Sometimes there was only three but once there was seven. I always divvied them with somebody else who’ll have to tell you the same thing when his turn comes.”
The priest must have asked him to talk lower and to tell him what he had done with the pennies. The little boy was whispering now, but it was a loud, desperate whisper.
“We bought little cakes, pink coconut cakes at Heider’s.”
The priest must have told him that he would have to get all the money back, earn it or save it out of what his mother gave him.
“It was about forty-three cents altogether,” the little boy said. “I can save it, Father. I’ll save it somehow.”
There was another silence; then the child said, “Do you always say your morning and evening prayers? No, not always.” He was back in the Suggestions again but too upset by telling his real sin to get the wording right this time.
In a minute he pulled aside the curtain and walked slowly with folded hands up to the altar rail, where he buried his head in his arms.
Rafferty was looking at him when he heard the church door open, and he froze before the pillar.He could hear heavy footsteps starting down the center aisle, and he had to peer around the pillar.
He saw Moulihan leaning over a pew and looking under the bench. Briley was on his way to the choir stairs.
Rafferty crept out into the side aisle, then swiftly crawled close to the pews until he came to the confessional. On hands and knees he went in before the astonished nun could stop him. He took the kneeling whispering child and lifted him away from the prayer stool before the grilled window and told him to go up to the altar rail and come back for another turn later. The child obeyed without a word, and the priest was peering through the grilled window in amazement.
“Bless me, Father, for I have sinned,” said Rafferty. “It’s been —seventeen years since my last confession.”
“What is the meaning of this?” the priest said. “Where is that child? You’ve interrupted that little boy’s confession, his first confession.”
“I know, Father, but his sins can wait. Mine are urgent. I’ve got to confess them this minute.”
“After seventeen years,” said the old priest dryly, “don’t you think you could wait a few minutes until these children are through?”
“I can’t, Father. I can’t wait. I have seventeen years of sins that I must shed before the weight kills me. I can’t wait another minute.”
“Well, get on with it,” said the priest. “Those children—Sister Theresa will be upset.”
Rafferty waded around in his sins like a man in a hold of fish. There were so many he didn’t know which to turn to first, so he took them up as they came and tossed them to the priest, who lightly held his handkerchief by his face so that the penitent would feel more at ease. Though he managed to look just as casual as he had with the little boys and though his mouth was closed, mentally it was wide open with astonishment.
Only once did Rafferty hesitate, and that was when he heard Moulihan, slowly walking up the aisle, stop by the confessional, and then go on.
Rafferty threw himself upon his sins.
Moulihan and Briley were talking angrily at the back of the church, their voices growing louder and louder. Rafferty stopped to listen and heard Briley say, “But he has to be in here. Benny saw him come in and he didn’t see him come out.”
Then Moulihan was coming down the aisle fast, and Rafferty clung to the kneeling bench. The priest was waiting for him to go on.
Moulihan tore back the green curtain, and Rafferty shrank into the corner of the confessional. A sharp pain ran down his arms; there was a tingling numbness about his upper lip, and his throat felt as though it were going to burst. As Moulihan grabbed at him, the nun knocked aside his arm and thrust herself between him and Rafferty. Her eyes were blazing, and Moulihan stepped back, then shook that piece of pipe in her face. “Get out of my way,” he roared.
The old priest pulled aside his curtain, but the little boys were scrambling into the aisle, and they crowded between the nun and Moulihan. He stood there glowering at them with a bloody rag around his head, and they stood before the nun and the confessional, defiant and fierce with outrage.
Moulihan turned and walked up the aisle. “Then I’ll get you when you come out, Rafferty,” he said.
The little boys clustered closer to the nun and looked up at her. She waved them back into the pews and let the curtain fall in place as the old priest went back into the confessional and faced Rafferty.
“We must pray for the man in there,” Sister Theresa said, and the little boys prayed with their eyes shut and their heads on their arms. They prayed silently in this strange emergency.
Rafferty attacked his sins fervently. The priest mopped his brow as all Rafferty’s guilt cascaded in on him through the little grilled window.
At last Rafferty leaned forward heavily on the prayer stool in exhaustion.
The old priest looked at him in silence and then said, “You are making a good confession.”
“Yes, Father. I came in here to hide, because it seemed like a covered hole to me, but from the first sin I confessed I wanted desperately to tell them all, to make a good confession, as much as I wanted to save my life. Maybe because I’ve wanted to for so long that when the opportunity was thrust on me I clutched at it just as I did this hiding place.”
“Do you firmly resolve never to commit these sins again?”
“I am a weak man, Father, as you can see. Most of these sins are as familiar to me as the palm of my hand. But I will try. Truly I will.”
When he stepped out of the confessional the nun was standing in the aisle, her beads moving through her fingers, and the little boys were very still.
Rafferty went slowly toward the big church door, hesitated, then opened it. There in the street Moulihan and Briley were fighting with two policemen. The prowl car was by the curb. Someone must have phoned in that Moulihan was hunting a man with that pipe and that he was hanging around the church.
Suddenly Briley broke away and ran, and the two cops were upon Moulihan. One of them had managed to get Moulihan’s pipe, but Moulihan still had his switchblade knife. When he slashed at the big cop, he slit his coat near his sleeve, and the other one brought Moulihan’s own lead pipe crashing down on his head. There was a cracking thump and Moulihan sagged to the street.
Rafferty stumbled back into the church and slumped down on his knees in the last pew.
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The theme of the story "Little Sinner's" is redemption and the power of confession.
Example 1: Rafferty, the main character, is a sinner who has been running from his past and the consequences of his actions. He seeks refuge in the church and finally decides to confess his sins. This act of confession represents his desire for redemption and a fresh start.
Example 2: The little boys in the church are also going to confession for the first time. They take their sins seriously and approach confession with remorse and a genuine desire to make amends. Their innocence and sincerity contrast with Rafferty's jaded perspective, highlighting the power of confession and the potential for redemption, even for those who feel they are beyond saving.
The theme of the story "Little Sinner's" is redemption and the power of confession.
In the story, Rafferty is constantly running from Moulihan, haunted by his past actions and sins. He is desperate to escape the consequences of his actions and to find redemption. This is seen in the line, "Now the reality was even worse than any of the nightmares in which he ran this terrifying race." Rafferty's fear and guilt drive him to seek refuge in the church, hoping to find some kind of solace and forgiveness.
Two specific examples of this theme can be found in the interactions between Rafferty and the little boys during their first confessions. The first example is when Rafferty interrupts one of the boys' confessions to confess his own sins. This demonstrates his overwhelming need to unburden himself and seek forgiveness for his past actions.
The second example is when Rafferty reflects on his own desire for confession and the power it holds for him. He realizes that confession is not just for the clean in spirit, but also for the decayed and broken, like himself. He recognizes that if he could make a true and honest confession, he could start anew and rid himself of the weight of his past.
Overall, the theme of redemption and the power of confession is evident in the story "Little Sinner's
https://www.jiskha.com/questions/1811556/this-is-for-the-text-little-sinners-ill-post-down-below-the-question-is-what-is-the
Plenty of good ideas there.
https://literary-devices.com/content/theme/