59 pages 1 hour read

George Saunders

Tenth of December

Fiction | Short Story Collection | Adult | Published in 2013

A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.

Character Analysis

Alison Pope (“Victory Lap”)

Alison Pope is a teenage girl who is left home alone in “Victory Lap.” She is prone to flights of fancy and beginning to think about boys, and she has pity for her neighbor Kyle Boot for his strict parents and lack of popularity. She is happy with her life and her community and believes that people are essentially good; this belief is put to the test when she is nearly kidnapped. After she is rescued by Kyle and calls the police, she realizes what will happen to Kyle and to her kidnapper if Kyle goes through with killing the man, she comes to the understanding that violence harms both the perpetrator and the victim. She is haunted by her experience, but her parents help her work through the trauma she has experienced by reminding her that her and Kyle’s actions kept a bad situation from being much worse. As the first character introduced in the collection, Alison embodies Saunders’s ideal of a person who manages to empathize with others, even and especially when this is most difficult. Alison’s rich inner monologue and imagined play suggests that empathy is a similarly imaginative act, requiring one to consider circumstances and personalities outside one’s own immediate experience.

Related Titles

By George Saunders

Study Guide

logo

A Swim in a Pond in the Rain

George Saunders

A Swim in a Pond in the Rain: In Which Four Russians Give a Master Class on Writing, Reading, and Life

George Saunders

Study Guide

logo

CivilWarLand in Bad Decline

George Saunders

CivilWarLand in Bad Decline

George Saunders

Plot Summary

logo

In Persuasion Nation

George Saunders

In Persuasion Nation

George Saunders

Study Guide

logo

Liberation Day

George Saunders

Liberation Day: Stories

George Saunders

Study Guide

logo

Lincoln in the Bardo

George Saunders

Lincoln in the Bardo

George Saunders

Plot Summary

logo

Pastoralia

George Saunders

Pastoralia

George Saunders