SOURCE: "I Want to Live While I Am Alive," in William Saroyan: My Real Work Is Being, The University of North Carolina Press, 1983, pp. 28-46.

Calonne is an American educator and critic. Assessing Saroyan's short story collections published in the second half of the 1930s, he determines that these works reflect an affirmation of life in an inhospitable, divisive modern world.

For Saroyan, it is clear, living itself is the highest value; he violently opposes any system, belief, or authority which seeks to thwart the unfolding of the individual's inner self. He depicts a modern world which is mired in illusion, which has forgotten the spiritual dimension of experience. In The Trouble with Tigers he describes humanity as "this mangled tribe, this still unborn God"; thus the deepest potentials inherent in life have yet to be realized by many people. The essential divinity of humanity is still tragically...