"The Healer" Analysis

Analysis Paper on "The Healer" Many fairytales of the past convey themes of a traditional nature- good versus evil, love lost, and love found. While these older tales are often interesting and relatable, the fairytales of today have begun to create new themes and convey more contemporary schools of thought. The author Amiee Bender displays this latter change in storytelling in the short story, “The Healer.” This story tells of the challenges of being unique and average, degree of emotion, and using one’s talents and gifts. In “The Healer,” the challenges of being unique are obviously addressed; however, the hardships of being average are also throughout the story. The fire girl and the ice girl obviously have the problems of ‘fitting in’ with the other people and students in the school. The author portrays the fire girl as having a desire to fit in with others and have connections with people; unfortunately, due to her uniqueness of her fiery hand, the other students are wary of connecting and forming friendships with her and appear to only want to use her when convenient and socially acceptable, such as when they need to have their cigarettes lit. The fire girl appears to know this and seeks connections in other ways such as burning items, even though she feels very alone. The ice girl is quite opposite, not desiring to fit in; perhaps she has accepted her fate as a social outcast or perhaps she feels no pain when being alone. The average girl also displays the hardship of being average as she desires to be more than mediocre and have something that sets her out from the crowd, such as the hands of the ice girl and fire girl. She appears interested in their gifts and obviously desires a uniqueness of her own displayed in her daydreaming and thoughts of grandeur.
The peril of degree of emotion is also a theme of this story. The fire girl represents feeling to much, while the ice girl represents feeling too little. The fire girl has strong desires