ipl-logo

What Is The Theme Of Retired By Cynthia Rylant

593 Words3 Pages

In the short story “Retired” By Cynthia Rylant there is a retired school teacher named Miss Phala Cutcheon and the problem is that she is lonely. Miss Cutcheon ends up adopting a dog when a neighbor can no longer keep it . The dog is important in the story because it is one of the main characters and helps bring back happiness to the lady. Miss Cutcheon walks the dog and they end up going on walks past the school she used to work at. These walks bring back old memories of her days as a school teacher, and she ends up making friends with some of the school children who want to meet her dog. Adopting the dog helped bring her memories and happiness.

Early in the text Miss Cutcheon was bored and lonely, however a neighbor family was moving to France and could not take their dog with them and asked her to take him. At first, the dog Velma was focused on memories of the children from her old family. Having the dog helped Miss Cutcheon and Velma think of memories. Furthermore, Miss Cutcheon was only thinking about her school children she had …show more content…

One day they got adventurous and walked further than normal. As a result, they ended up at a school yard playground with lots of children. Adopting the dog helped bring her memories and happiness because she was walking the dog when she saw the school children and made friends with them because they all wanted to see the dog and they started asking Miss Cutcheon lots of questions and she answered just like when she was a school teacher. After Miss Cutcheon and Vlema went to the school a few times the kids all wanted to pet the dog because it was so cute. The text says, “ The children learned their names, and Miss Cutcheon soon knew the children who stroked Velma the way she had known her own fourth graders years ago.” The kids wanted to talk to Miss Cutcheon because of Velma but ended up making friends with her too and brought happiness to them

Open Document