Setting

The events described in the short story “Trash” by Souvankham Thammavongsa take place in different settings, which have different meanings for the characters.

First, the narrative mentions the supermarket the narrator works in. For her, the supermarket is a place that gives her comfort and security, as it was the place that offered her a job when she needed it the most:

It was a grand place. All those shelves of food. You didn’t have to go very far to get anything. (…) Each and every item was given a bar code of its very own, everything was kept track of. The fee...