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A Relationship is Not an Economy

AimeeBender LewisHyde ShawnAndrewMitchell ShortStoryMonth TheGift

A Relationship is Not an Economy

In The Gift, which Margaret Atwood succinctly summarizes as a “classic study of gift giving and its relationship to art,” Lewis Hyde describes the principles of gifts, primarily that the gift must transfer, and “the feeling that if a gift is not treated as such, if one form of property is converted into another, something horrible will happen.” Aimee Bender’s “The Red Ribbon” is that what-if story—quiet, subtle, horrific, and sad—a cautionary tale about what happens when you treat a relationship as an economy and trade the gifts of love for the tit-for-tat of commodity exchange. The story has a...

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