In discussing the altercations witnessed over the course of the day, Stephen Elwin and his family grapple with question of whether the downtrodden and those burdened by prejudice are nonetheless responsible for their own breeding and behavior. Elwin’s earnest and idealistic daughter Margaret valiantly defends their maid, who happens to be Black and also named Margaret, until she witnesses 'the other Margaret' breaking a piece of artwork.

In a series of commentaries on the human condition — life, truth, happiness, death — a spinster sister takes in her dead sister’s children; a man is entranced by the endless waves which roll and crash in the ocean; a carpenter wrestles with the burden of being everyone’s confidante; a dying railroad crossing watchman shares a simple but complex wisdom.

A writer is shocked when his retired father begins to publish stories. The man struggles to admit that his father is a talented writer, especially since the stories are based on events from the man's childhood.

A series of vignettes about various sons along a family tree.

A professor tries to convey to his students the magnitude of the most perfectly crafted poem ever written in the English language: “Lycidas.”

Now estranged from her son, a music teacher recounts the event that first sowed distrust in their relationship—an event that involved an energetic dog, a strange-looking man, and a banana.

Four women–a retired dancer enacting an old dance, a grandmother preparing a birthday dinner for her family, her granddaughter participating in a genetics study, and a researcher quantifying the burden of old memories–all unite under the combined weight of their war-burdened pasts in the contemporary United States.

A creative writing teacher sits through a conference with one his favorite students. He takes us on a journey through the characters in the story, and in his life.

A son tells a series of stories, most of them about his father and stepfather. As the son describes a robbery that took place at his house in high school and his experiences with his father, a former Jehovah's Witness and current alcoholic, he begins to recall details from his childhood.

A teacher reminisces about all his wonderful students of the Narrative Studies courses he has taught around the world before his career comes to an end.