While Haslett's stories may not fit the Aristotelian definition of comedy, their characters all undergo some kind of transformation, usually through contact with others who, often unwittingly, enable a kind of benedictive catharsis. The teenage boy is finally able to grieve; the suicidal man, whose wife is constantly afraid of leaving him alone for fear of what he'll do, finds solace in the company of the dying boy whose time is also growing short; the shrink reaches a new understanding of his own pain once he accepts the lonely mother's resolve to live with the loss of her son because it is now and forever a part of who she is.