Dear Alexandros by John Updike is a short story that has a format of a pair of letters exchanged between two connected people in totally different situation. It raises a proposition that human beings, particularly of ones who possess certain extent of wealth, have: what the better life is.
The first letter is written by a Greek boy called Alexandros who lives with his sister and grand mother who has been taking care of him. He does not have parents, so now he is under a support of an international charity organization called Hope, Incorporated. As he says "I am keeping well, for which I thank God, and hope that it is the same with you. May God keep you always well, and grant you every happiness and joy." (Updike, 150) he is quite a devout and thankful to his happy life. His letter is a full of expression of gratitude and concern to his American parents who support him, as well as his pleasure of things like sea, friends and school.
The second letter is the reply to the first, by Alexandros's American parent Mr Bentley who supports him through the relief program. He is now in separation, or perhaps divorced, from his wife and two children. After brief greeting paragraphs, he abruptly tells that "Mrs Bentley and I no longer live together" (151) even though he says he had not intended to tell Alexandros this. He tries to distract the topic from his family to political matters in the next paragraph but then again he comes back to write about his separation. From this, his confusion and depression are easily seen. Besides, as he talks "there still is a perhaps childish wish that other nations just let us alone, and then the sun will shine." (151) he appears to be critical to other people in the US, or disdain them. In fact when he tells about his friends he addresses them "very tedious people" (151). Perhaps because he thinks he is highly educated and prefers to discuss political matter or education, famous artists, poets and the like rather than talking about what we might call "cheap" fun.