Q) Concept of humanity in Witches loaves
In Witches’ Loaves, the author depicts and criticizes the selfish love which violates
humanity. The heroine of this short story is Miss Martha Meacham, who has a bakery and
enjoys a comparatively well-to-do life. She remains single when she is 40 years old until
she begins an unrequited affection with one of her customers, a middle-aged man who
comes to buy two loaves of stale bread two or three times a week. He is elegant and
obviously a gentleman. The bakery owner believes that he must be a poor artist since he
never buys new breads and this provokes her sympathetic heart. One day she puts some
butter in the stale bread secretly. However, after she sells the two stale breads with butter to
her secret lover without letting him notice this, the middle-aged man rushes into the bakery
and shouts at Miss Martha Meacham with great anger, which makes her so surprised
and sad. In the end, one of the friends of the man tells her that this man is an architecture
designer who uses the stale breads to clean his designing paper but not to eat, since he
believes the stale breads are much good at erasing pencil works than common eraser.
Unfortunately Miss Martha puts some butter into the bread to show her love which he does
not know about. While he uses the bread to clean his designing paper and the result, as you
can imagine, is terrible. That is why he is so mad at her.
In this story, the innocent woman falls in love with a man without his knowing. She tries
to love him in her own way with her kind and sympathetic heart and she tries her best to help
him since she grants him as a poor gentleman. Nevertheless, her love does not get the same
return. On the contrary, her behavior enrages her lover and her secret love is not only exposed
