Theme

I think that the main theme that all of these short stories have in common is that they all have to deal with parent-child issues. The parents seem to always, in some way, disappoint their children. But in some, like "Rules of the Game", I thought that MeiMei was just selfish and in a way placed fault on her mother. MeiMei disappointed herself but blamed her mother. But I guess her mother did push her like she was some kind of Hollywood child star. "The Life You Save May Be Your Own", now Lucynell, the mother, was a horrible person. She just shoved her daughter out of her life basically. Who would marry off their own child to a stranger? Do all of these short stories have a common theme with our new class novel? I hope not.