When reading different stories, you can often relate one to another, even if they are written by different authors and are over different topics. I personally found common ideas between "The Hand" by Sidonie-Gabrielle Colette, a story of a wife and her new husband, and "The Sock" by Lydia Davis, a story between an ex-wife, her ex-husband, and his new wife. There is a visible, distinct connection between each of the main characters' struggles and choices. In "The Hand", the wife is focusing on her husband's hand throughout the story, and in "The Sock", the ex-wife is focusing on a sock that the ex-husband left at her home after a visit. Each of these women is analyzing her situation around that seemingly insignificant item, which reveals an underlying struggle in both of their minds.
             "The Sock" is a heartbreaking story that opens with a woman speaking of her ex-husband, whom she refers to as "my husband" throughout the story. This reveals how unstable she is in this situation. She spent years of her life with this man, and it's too difficult for her to refer to him as anything but her husband. Then she begins to tell a story of a trip that her ex-husband and his new wife made to her house to visit her son. She is obviously trying to be perfect in every way, which is probably unnecessary, but she feels that everything must be done the correct way. About half way through the story, she lists some of their belongings that she found while picking up the house. She mentions a sock, and later in the story, she returns it to him. He carelessly puts it in his back pocket and forgets about it throughout the duration of the story, but it's the one thing she can't get off of her mind. She keeps thinking of all the socks she had found of his when they were married, noting every single detail about them. Even the way she could see his heel through t...