Common Theme

The common theme between all four stories is that you will need to leave the ones around you at some point because it is something that will need ot be done. In each story one of the characters leaves another one in order to go on their own to think, live alone, or even ditch their new wife. In The Life You Save May Be Your Own Mr. Shiftlet leaves his new wife in order to go on his own probably because he thinks it's for the better. Meimei goes off on her own to escape the pressure of her mom in The Rules of the Game. The father leaves in order to think about the sculpture his daughter has made for him in The Book of the Dead. And finally, the son leaves his family in order to pursue whatever his ambitions are without being "controlled" by his family in Teenage Wasteland. This is an important theme because we are going to have to embark on leaving our families to go to college or a job to fulfill our dreams. This will be very hard if we can't even depart from our families. It did seem easy enough for the characters in this book though. Everybody has to leave another at some point.