Lambert Stamp Theme

Summary:

The short story consist of flashback which results in three time periods in Lambert Stamp’s life, his adult life and two periods in his youth.

In the present time period Lambert Stamp is going to university and has been living with his girlfriend Liz for five years. But a relationship issue is concerning the almost perfect couple.

In his youth he attended school where a presentation was held by an old blind lady named Mrs. Heller who talked about her horrible experience as a prisoner at the concentration camp Auschwitz. As the presentation was unfolding, Lambert started to laugh without reason. Therefore Lambert was almost expelled permanently, but because of his dad was suspended for a week even though his dad tried to reduce the

Heller is an unusual person because of her terrible experience in the Auschwitz concentration camp under the Second World War. Mrs. Heller is handicapped because of her incapability to walk and her blindness. As she says “My eyes are blind” after which she explains how it is a curse to her that people have an aversion to believe in her story and therefore she has to picture the horrible events multiple times. She has a will to make people believe her stories, she demands that people know to the terrifying history and how shocking events can never be fully forgotten. Hereby a main theme for this short story could be: Lack of recognition of problems in hope of dodging uncomfortable feelings. The lack of recognition of horrors which Mrs. Heller had described can be seen in Lambert’s life in a different way. Lambert’s mom would not believe that the accident had an effect on her health: “”You better?” I asked. “Of course, dear. Much. It was just the shock. All better now.””. After her death another lack of recognition happened to Lambert’s dad who did not want to believe that the previous accident was the course of her suicide: “”Did she take them on purpose?” I asked. “Of course not,” Dad said. “It was an accident. She wouldn’t do it to us. Leave us like this. Would she, Lamb? She wouldn’t do it.””. Even Lambert himself would not believe that his Girlfriend was cheating on him: ““I can’t believe she’s done this. It’s just not possible such things can happen.””. His dad

Heller’s presentation, which is some kind of defense-mechanism. Hereby, another theme could be Lambert’s defense mechanism, which the story has a focus on. The laugh can be interpreted as his incapability of understanding his feelings. His mother’s death may have had a touch in his strange behavior. When his mother died he showed no feelings, not even anger nor sorrow. He might be afraid of showing emotions, which caused the sudden anxiety to laugh because he didn’t know what else to do. Furthermore, this is similar to his situation with Liz. The short story shows that Lambert has beaten Liz because she might have been unfaithful to him. Liz had never thought that Lambert would ever hit her as she says: “I just can’t believe you could do it. Hit me. I thought I knew all there was to know about you.” The violence could also be a defense-mechanism just like his laugh. His feelings get too extreme which is followed by a spontaneous and random action in order to dodge