Don't You have any Donkeys in Your Country?-Cole

I thought that it was very interesting how the author of this short story chose to begin and end it in the same way.  At the beginning of the story, the main character is talking about how he is disgraced, at the end of the story, he is talking about how he is disgraced again.  I think that this is a way for the author to give us an overall feeling about the story.  The author could of just told the main story, but that wouldn't really give us a feeling for who the victim was in the end.  When I started the story, I thought that the main character would be disgraced because he had just tricked a poor peasant for money.  As the story went on, it was clear that the poor boy new more about trading than he lead on, and by the end of the story, I knew that in fact the poor boy had cleverly tricked them to buy a worthless donkey for 2,500 liras.  I think there were two reasons the man felt disgraced; first of all he felt disgraced because he was trying to help a wealthy man try to trick a poor boy into giving him something for almost no money. Then, when he was tricked by the child, he felt bad for the man that had lost some of his money.  It was obvious that the rug collector didn't really care about the money, but it was more of a pride thing  for the main character.