The short story, Love Medicine by Louise Erdrich, and the two poems “l(a” by E.E. Cummings, and “This is Just to Say” by William Carlos Williams, all involve two common themes of loneliness and temptation. The short story is based on love gone wrong, where a love medicine is made, which eventually leads to being alone. The poem “l(a” is about loneliness, as that is the main theme of the poem. The poem “This is Just to Say” is about a person who gives in to temptation and asks for forgiveness when they have done something wrong relying on a strong relationship for the person to be able to forgive them.

The short story is all about love and how when it goes wrong, can lead to loneliness. The Grandma of the narrator feels her husband is losing it and starting to lose interest in her and gain it in a new love affair. She is right, and asks upon her grandson to create a love medicine to regain the love that had once been there. She was tempted to do this because she knew her grandson has a special ability. The grandson creates his love medicine by getting two turkey hearts and having the grandmother eat one, and the grandfather eat one. This eventually leads to the grandfather’s death, and the grandmother being alone. The grandfather comes back as a ghost a couple of times but ultimately the grandmother is alone. The grandmother’s temptation to give create a love potion to try to become more connected with her husband again, leaves her alone and much more separated from her husband as he is now dead.

The poem “l(a” is very different from most poems. The poem reads as “l (a leaf falls) loneliness”. With line breaks it is hard to see what the poem says but helps create more meaning. The poem says “a leaf falls” in parenthesis and the next line, the seventh line, says just “one” as part of the word loneliness, but also emphasizing just “one” leaf falls, that one leaf is alone. This poem is emphasizing as one leaf falls, it is alone. This can be applied to people. As one person slips through the cracks and starts to fall, they are like the leaf, alone.

The third work, “This is Just to Say” is about temptation. The speaker of the poem admits stealing plums from the ice box. The speaker seems to have really enjoys them and apologizes to their owner for having taken them. If someone were to take plums, or any food, I would assumer they have a good relationship with that person. It reminds me of first going to school, in the dorm room. When we first moved in, people did not just take other peoples food, but as we got to know each other, people started to more and more. If someone was hungry, they would often give in to temptation and take a bit of someone else’s food. This makes the reader think that their must be some relationship between the speaker and the owner of the plums, and by giving in to this temptation, perhaps their relationship will change.

In conclusion, these three works involve temptation, and loneliness. As seen in the short story, temptation can lead to loneliness. Perhaps in the third work discussed temptation for plums could represent temptation for other things of friends or family and lead to loneliness. In the second work discussed, loneliness is an idea of being just one and alone, as temptation in the first story led to.