Never by H.E. Bates Summary

Many people had dreamed of some new exciting adventures, new experience, something very different from the same old existence. Some of them do this step, others are still questioning whether they're ready for it.

The plot of a very short story "Never" written by English writer H.E. Bated is similar to life-story when readers find hope in it, when they are being plucked from obscurity: "so might we"- they think. This is a story of one girl who was thinking about a change in her life.

The first paragraph had drawn the picture of drowsy, half-dark room where the young girl was sitting observing through the window the shadowed fields of British countryside "looking like black scars one minute, and like friendly sanctuaries the next".

She was repeating "I am going away… I am going away. I can't stand it any longer... I'm tired here, I never do anything, It's dead, rotten ... I never do anything.". She played the piano and thought: "I'll never play this waltz again. It has the atmosphere of this room. It's the last time!"

On the way to the train station, she tried to conjure up a vision of London.

But ... It was cold as she walked back. She had no spirit. She sat down, telling herself: "This isn't the only day. Some day I shall go. Some day."

And again and again as she played the waltz, she would tell herself that same thing: "Some day! Some day!"

The title "Never" would refer to:

- the girl who thought that she never come back to her hometown;

- the situation that she never decide to change her life;

- luck and lack of luck when her father played cards.

This book was included in The Oxford Book of Short Stories chosen by V.S. Pritchett. Probably one of the reasons is that H.E. Bates put the English countryside down on paper. Literature critics said that HE was blessed and also limited by being a little Englander.

This story is a good example of English literature, it is recommended for reading.