SOURCE: "A Commentary on Algren's 'A Bottle of Milk for Mother,"' in The Short Story: Classic and Contemporary, J. B. Lippincott Company, 1966, pp. 504-12.

In the following essay, Lid discusses the primary conflicts in the short story "A Bottle of Milk for Mother" by examining Algren's use of detail, character, and symbolism.

In "A Bottle of Milk for Mother," Bruno Lefty Bicek, the young pitcher of the Polish Warriors S.A.C., and an aspiring boxer, makes his descent, step by step, into hell. At the beginning of the story he stands, a shorn Samson (the Warriors have all had their heads shaved), in the query room of the Racine Street police station before his accusers—Milano and Comiskey, the arresting officers; Sergeant Adamovitch, the fatherly turnkey; and Captain Kozak, "eleven years on the force and brother to an alderman." A prim-faced reporter in a raccoon coat...