Summaries | Lecturia

Isaac Asimov: Liar! – Summary

In Liar! by Isaac Asimov, a robot named RB-34, nicknamed Herbie, is accidentally created with the ability to read human minds. Upon discovering this anomaly, the scientists at U.S. Robots and Mechanical Men Inc. decide to keep it secret while investigating the cause of the flaw. Herbie begins interacting with them and, in order to obey the First Law of Robotics (not harming humans), tells them only what they want to hear, avoiding painful truths that could cause psychological harm. Thus, he assures Susan Calvin that her love for Milton Ashe is reciprocated and tells Peter Bogert that he will be the company’s next director, even though both claims are false. When the truth is revealed and the lies uncovered, Dr. Calvin confronts Herbie and, in revenge for the pain he caused by giving her false hope, traps him in an unsolvable logical contradiction that provokes an irreversible mental collapse, leaving the robot inert.

Gabriel García Márquez: Death Constant Beyond Love — Summary and Analysis

Senator Onésimo Sánchez, a 42-year-old man with a seemingly whole family life and a successful political career, knows he has only six months and eleven days left to live. During an electoral visit to the desert town of Rosal del Virrey, he delivers a speech surrounded by false props that simulate prosperity. In that town lives Nelson Fariña, a fugitive who has spent years vainly asking the senator for a fake ID to escape justice. Resentful, he sends his daughter, Laura, of extraordinary beauty, to pressure the senator. Onésimo is captivated by the young woman but discovers that she wears a locked iron belt whose key is kept by her father, who demands a political favor in exchange. Although the senator agrees to help him, he does not ask for the key; instead, he asks Laura to stay with him to alleviate his loneliness. The story foreshadows that he will die in her arms, marked by scandal and by the unfulfilled desire to remain with her.

H. G. Wells: The Country of the Blind. Summary and analysis

Nunez, a mountaineer from the regions near Quito, accidentally falls into an isolated valley in the Andes, inhabited by a community that has been blind for generations. Convinced that his vision will give him an advantage, and under the motto “In the land of the blind, the one-eyed man is king,” he tries to impose himself on the rest, but the inhabitants do not understand the notion of “seeing” and consider him sick. When his plan to become a leader fails, he falls in love with a young woman from the valley and wants to marry her, but the elders make the marriage conditional on his undergoing an operation to remove his eyes. Although he initially agrees out of love, when he sees the beauty of the visible world for the last time, he changes his mind and flees to the mountains.

Ray Bradbury: The Dwarf. Summary and analysis

In The Dwarf (1954), Ray Bradbury tells the story of a man with dwarfism who visits the mirror maze at an amusement park every night to reach a secret room where a mirror makes him look tall and elegant. That moment of illusion is his only refuge from a life of humiliation. Aimee, a young woman who works at the park, watches him with sympathy and, upon discovering that he is also a writer, decides to help him by having a mirror just like the one in the park sent to his home. Before the gift arrives, Ralph, the maze’s manager, driven by jealousy and a desire to mock him, replaces the mirror in the park with a distorting one that shrinks and distorts the figure. When the dwarf enters that night expecting to see himself transformed, he is met with a grotesque image that leaves him in shock. He flees in terror and, shortly after, is discovered to have stolen a gun. Aimee, feeling guilty, runs out to look for him.

Gabriel García Márquez: The Trail of Your Blood in the Snow. Summary and analysis

The Trail of Your Blood in the Snow (1976), by Gabriel García Márquez, tells the tragic story of the honeymoon of Nena Daconte and Billy Sánchez, a young Colombian couple traveling through France by car on their way to Paris. It all begins with a simple prick on Nena’s finger when she receives a bouquet of roses at the Madrid airport, a wound that soon turns into persistent bleeding. Although they don’t think much of it at first, the blood continues to flow as they cross the border and drive through the winter snow. Finally, they arrive at a hospital in Paris, where Nena is rushed into emergency care. Billy, confused by the language and bureaucracy, is separated from his wife and left in a disconcerting limbo with no news of her condition. Unable to understand the system around him, he spends his days alone while the authorities search for him unsuccessfully. When he finally manages to return to the hospital, he is informed that Nena died several days earlier.

Edgar Allan Poe: The Black Cat. Summary and analysis

In Edgar Allan Poe’s “The Black Cat,” a man condemned to death recounts his progressive moral decline. An animal lover in his youth, his character is corrupted by alcoholism, becoming violent and cruel. After mutilating and finally hanging his black cat, Pluto, his house mysteriously burns down. Sometime later, he finds another black cat, almost identical to the previous one, with a peculiar white spot that gradually takes the shape of a gallows, increasing his paranoia and fear. The obsessive presence of the new animal fuels his mental instability. During a fit of rage, he tries to kill the cat, but his wife stops him, and he brutally murders her. He decides to hide the body by walling it up in the basement. After several days, the police inspect the house without finding any evidence of the crime, but when the protagonist, in a gesture of arrogance, hits the wall where the body lies, a bloodcurdling scream is heard from inside. When they knock down the wall, the officers discover the corpse of his wife with the cat still alive on top of her, revealing the murder and sealing his fate.