Why the Title?

“TESS” is just an acronym. But it is reminiscent of Thomas Hardy’s novel Tess of the d’Urbervilles. If this were a short story and not a novel, it would have certainly been included. Tess says that the stars in the sky are all worlds like ours and compares them to apples on an apple tree--some splendid and sound, some blighted. Our world, she says, is like a blighted apple. It is a world in which ordinary people often find themselves in the most horrendous situations. The short story is the medium par excellence to exemplify this. Kurt Vonnegut included this in his tips for writing short stories: “Be a sadist. No matter how sweet and innocent your leading characters, make awful things happen to them—in order that the reader may see what they are made of.” Paradoxically, this is where questions of ethics and the good life abound.