Study Like a Boss
Comedy, Courtly Love, Drama, Fiction, Novel, Poetry, Protagonist, Tragedy, 1984, A Raisin in The Sun, Animal Farm, Beowulf, Fahrenheit 451, Frankenstein, George Orwell, Hamlet, Into The Wild, Lord of The Flies, Macbeth, Of Mice and Men, A Modest Proposal, All Quiet on The Western Front, Allegory, Antigone, Between The World and Me.
Thomas King’s “Borders”, written in 1993, is a short fiction story showing an indirect characterization about Mother. The story allows the reader to understand the difficulties Mother encounters, of not disclosing the citizenship of the country she belongs to. However, taking the pride, of showcasing the cultural identity as ‘Blackfoot’. Identically overcomes the various difficulties … Read more
“Bien Pretty,” as the title implies, is a story that invests in appearance. Throughout the story, prettiness is used as a proxy for authenticity and confidence in one’s identity, while ugliness is a stand-in for performed identity. Flavio’s appearance initially attracts Lupe because he physically calls to mind ancient Aztec imagery. She finds him pretty, … Read more
“Little Red Riding Hood” can be viewed as one of the most popular and famous bedtime fairytales. Based on the original counterpart, Angela Carter remolds this story by adding sexual elements through her work “The Company of Wolves”, in which the narrator describes the red of the heroine’s cape, which resembles “blood on snow” and … Read more
The very first lines of Poe’s “The Man of the Crowd” imply that this is a secretive story by nature, for Poe suggests that this particular narrative may not “permit itself to be read” (p.1561). The story itself takes on a responsibility independent of that of the author, for it is the story itself that … Read more
Just one of the many short stories compiled in James Joyce’s Dubliners, “After the Race” is an effective portrayal of the shame and misfortune that result from Jimmy Doyle’s efforts to become accepted by a wealthy group of men. His constant desire to present himself as an aristocrat, one who is consistently in the company … Read more
Published in 1904, Edith Wharton’s “The Other Two” explores the infancy of divorce within New York’s middle-class society by utilizing the concept of the futile struggle to escape social forces that are out of one’s control. In addition to that, the story presents consequences of this change in social system in the form of social … Read more
The short story ‘The Bloody Chamber’ by Angela Carter includes an abundance of conventions effective in establishing a Gothic setting. The tale is a tragic one, where the innate curiosity of a young girl inevitably finds her in danger. Published in the late 20th Century, at a time when Gothic writing was less prominent in … Read more
Gina Berriault’s “The Stone Boy” follows the story of a young boy facing the aftermath of a terrible accident and trying to understand his responsibility in the matter. When Arnold does not respond emotionally, the adults’ false assumptions isolate Arnold. In “The Stone Boy”, Berriault uses the motifs of light to represent knowledge and truth … Read more
Never has the world experienced a time period in which the culture is so dramatically altered in such a short amount of time as demonstrated in the 1920’s. This time period is often referred to as the “Roaring Twenties” or F. Scott Fitzgerald’s coined phrase, “The Jazz Age,” and brought society into a new era … Read more
In the abstract of this article, we are made to understand that the idealism of Josiah Royce is informed by the criticism of George Holmes. The free and independent selves are featured in the absolute idealism as reflected by Josiah Royce. His facts and views were presented in a supplementary essay that was found in … Read more
Nathan Englander’s “Free Fruit for Young Widows” is strong story full of morality. In the center of the story is Professor Tendler, who escaped from the concentration camp during the Holocaust to get back to his family home. He finds his babysitter with her family there in his house who were a part of their … Read more
“Whoever fights monsters should see to it that in the process, he does not become a monster, and if you gaze long enough into an abyss, the abyss will gaze back into you.” These immortal words spoken by Nineteenth-Century philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche sum up the plight of the protagonist of Ha Jin’s Saboteur. Mr. Chiu … Read more
In the short story, “By the Waters of Babylon” by Stephen Vincent Benet, setting is a very important element of how the story is portrayed. Although readers are introduced to a setting that feels like thousands of years ago, the reader later figures out that the setting is actually taking place sometime in the future … Read more
In the short story “The Lame Shall Enter First,” author Flannery O’Connor describes a widower’s attempts to mask his grief over his wife’s death. In order to fill the void in his heart, the widower, Sheppard, throws himself into miscellaneous charitable endeavors. He shows this philanthropy most notably in his treatment of a young delinquent … Read more
Introduction Giovanni Boccaccio’s medieval masterpiece “The Decameron” is a collection of stories, chronicled over ten days, which highlights the best and worst of human nature. Boccaccio’s tales deal with themes such as adultery, love, premarital sex, devotion, trickery, and manipulation, among others. Yet this work is historically significant as a result of its brutal and … Read more
This short story addresses the complexity of human nature. We see that the father in the story has awareness and he is proud of not drinking routinely. We also know that he is aware of the consequences of his drinking. To go on furthermore, we see how the mother uses her son and what she … Read more
Societally, most individuals enjoy believing that they are without bias. Whether it be gender, race, disability, or religion, everyone has preconceived notions about select people groups. While this can be difficult to admit, Toni Morrison constructs her short story, Recitatif, in a manner which forces her readers to face their biases and stereotypes. Through the … Read more
Though rather simple in plot and structure, Gogol’s short stories carry deep moral messages, which are urgent beyond time and place. One of these is a theme of a little man, who is a poor person, is not respected by those with higher ranks, and is usually driven to despair by his life conditions. This … Read more
“The Island At Noon” by Julio Cortazar follows main character Marini, who works as a flight attendant flying over the Aegean sea and wishes to travel to an island he observes out the window. However, when he makes it to the island, while he finds it as beautiful as he thought it would be, the … Read more
In his short tale “The Overcoat,” Nikolai Gogol has unfolded tragedies as well as satirical jokes by imagining a wide range of roles an overcoat can fulfill within an oppressive, bureaucratic, and heavily materialistic society. Without loss of humor, he has shown his reader different perceptions of an overcoat as a simple necessity for decent … Read more
The short story “Letters from My Father”, written by Robert Olen Butler, and the poem “The Writer”, written by Richard Wilbur, both depict family struggles. “Letters from My Father” is about a Vietnamese girl who grew up without a father because of troubles with immigration and when she is finally reunited with her father she … Read more
The Gift of the Magi is a short story written by O. Henry is a story about a wife and her husband buying Christmas gifts for each other with just a little money that they have. I greatly admire the character, Della. Della is a very devoted housewife and Della has given Jim everything she … Read more
“ Marmais van der Vyver is the protagonist, an Afrikaner farmer who accidentally kills one of his farm boys. Other characters in the Story: Van der Vyver’s wife and children, Captain Beetge, Lucas, Lucas’ mother, wife and children, etc. These are secondary characters whose role was to enhance how Marmais van der Vyver relates to … Read more
“Hills Like White Elephants,” is a short story, written by author Ernest Hemingway. It is a story about a man and a woman waiting at a train station talking about an issue that they never name. I believe this issue is abortion. In this paper, I will support my thoughts that the girl in the … Read more
Junot Diaz’s book This Is How You Lose Her provides an insightful look into love and loss, mostly through the eyes of its narrator, Yunior. Within this collection are stories of Yunior’s infidelity and the relationships of those around him; this includes tales of his family’s struggles with their respective partnerships. There is a subtle … Read more
Of all of the stories in Winesburg, Ohio, one stands out as a clear example of character growth through emotional maturity and connection with another human being. “Sophistication” tells that story, one of the simultaneous climax of two peoples’ youth, and their epiphanic transition into adulthood and maturity. Through the internal and shared conflicts of … Read more
In “Miss Brill,” Katherine Mansfield uses a combination of symbolism and mood to portray an old woman’s veiled loneliness and loss of innocence. In the story, the protagonist Miss Brill maintains the quiet life of a person who is content to watch the events of others’ lives unfold around her while she remains a figure … Read more
Humans are made of the tangible; flesh and blood, muscles and bones, cells and nerves. The survival of man can be dissected into the purely scientific, the emotionless, the artless. The value of the anatomical can clearly not be understated, as such is the basest foundation of existence. However, when unaccompanied by that which offers … Read more
In “Everything that Rises must Converge” Flannery O’ Connor compares the robustness of different methods of maintaining identity. The two identity schemas being compared are those of Julian, the highly individualistic, cerebral main character and his mother, a condescending Southern woman clinging to her fading social status. By focusing on the ongoing clash between these … Read more
Sandra Cisneros’ Woman Hollering Creek is rife with elements of postcolonial ideologies that insert themselves into the story and create tension for the protagonist by “othering” her and her family through a form of orientalism that stereotypes Mexicans and portrays them as helpless, savage, substandard versions of Americans. Furthermore, the story simultaneously shows the mimicry … Read more
Judith Fetterly coined the term “immasculation” in her 1978 book “The Resisting Reader,” using it to define the process by which “women are taught […] to identify with a male point of view and to accept as normal and legitimate a male system of values” (3). In the short stories “Boys and Girls,” by Alice … Read more
Sometimes, people have a tendency to disguise their anguish with elements of happiness and constantly tell themselves that they are happy when they truly are not. Bertha Young from Katherine Mansfield’s “Bliss” believed that she was truly happy in her life because she seemed to have everything she needed. However, she comes to the horrible … Read more
“Happy Endings” is an interesting short story by Margaret Atwood, which aims at showing that the end of a narrative is not as important as the middle. I choose this story because as a reader I understand clearly that, the middle of the story is the fundamental part which is unique. Furthermore, the narrative itself … Read more
“The Necklace” by Guy de Maupassant tells the story of an unsatisfied middle-class woman whose dreams of luxury end up in disaster. Mathilde Loisel is what some may call a desperate house wife, she stays in the house all with nothing to do. To escape this boredom, she day dreams about what her life would … Read more
Have students ever thought of what makes a short sci-fi/fantasy story so extradentary to read? “Nine Lives” by Ursula K. Le Guin “is a novelette that was first published in Playboy magazine in 1968.At the time of the story’s magazine publication, Playboy requested that she publish the work under her initials U. K. Le Guin … Read more
Angela Carter’s work in the short story collection “The Bloody Chamber,” makes frequent use of concrete objects as expressions of abstract concepts, among them freedom, bondage, and death in multiple forms, not only physical. In the short story “The Bloody Chamber,” the world the protagonist lives in is archaic. Although timeless in technicality, the reader … Read more
In an oft-cited review of Alice Munro’s fourth published collection, critic John Gardner asks a pertinent question regarding “whether The Beggar Maid is a collection of stories or a new kind of novel.” While this question is not only germane, but even imperative to interpretation of Munro’s work, Gardner’s treatment of it is careless. He … Read more
The Mexican Revolution was fought to bring about reform for the peasants in society; on the contrary, no agrarian reform occurred, and the people were left worse off than before the fighting began. Juan Rulfo wrote a collections of short stories titled The Burning Plain to paint a picture of the land once the fighting … Read more
In D.H. Lawrence’s ‘The Man who Loved Islands’, the plot is used as a vehicle for an allegory about different ideals in life – ‘community, marriage and independence’ (Franks 121), as represented by the three islands. Through the use of an allegory, Lawrence delivers a cautionary tale that goes beyond the plot of simply a … Read more
“Hills Like White Elephants,” is a short story, written by author Ernest Hemingway. It is a story about a man and a woman waiting at a train station talking about an issue that they never name. I believe this issue is abortion. In this paper, I will support my thoughts that the girl in the … Read more
Chinua Achebe’s “Civil Peace” takes place in post-war Nigeria. The story’s protagonist, Jonathan Iwegbu, considers himself to be a very lucky man as most of his family is alive and he still has the few material possessions he had possessed before the war. He is able to make some money putting his bicycle to use … Read more
The literary compositions of Edgar Allan Poe, especially his short stories of terror based on supernatural or psychological manifestations, continue to be highly praised by a select group of readers who relish the dark, nightmarish worlds of human existence with their roots firmly established in the ancient past. Edgar Poe’s uncanny ability to transcend reality … Read more
In his collection of short stories about a simple American country town, Winesburg, Ohio, Sherwood Anderson offers a critique of the emerging modern society of the early 20th century. Anderson establishes his disillusionment toward modernity by presenting the contemporary times in a materialistic and somewhat mournful fashion. He uses literary devices, specific characters, and plot … Read more
In a benumbing world, devoid of much refreshment, a felicitous moment in time can unite people in a cohesive bond and rejuvenate the world. Gabriel Garcia Marquez’s “The Handsomest Drowned Man in the World” weaves this idea masterfully. He does not use grandiose foretelling statements that march the reader right to the message, but beautiful … Read more
“Everyday Use”, a short story written by Alice Walker, is told in the perspective of Mama. Mama is described as “a big-boned woman with rough, man-working hands”. The story begins with Mama waiting on her oldest daughter Dee to arrive home. It is learned that Mama and the church raised enough money to send Dee … Read more
The wind whipped around the corner, moaning and warning me that torrential rain awaited me. Without hesitating, I shut all the windows in my room. I fumbled down the stairs to the living room and sat on a couch. The sound of the ticking clock floated on the silent atmosphere. I had always been used … Read more
In the short story The Shining Houses by Alice Munro, Mary is a young inquisitive mother who explores the lives of her neighbours in the community. The story follows her day on the way to a child’s birthday party, the characters in the story all have their won plan with different outcomes and motives. The … Read more
“Life is swift, and the value of life is the value of every moment.” -Waldo Frank Out of all the readings for this class, this sentiment is expressed strongest in the works of Jean Toomer and Sherwood Anderson. Cane and Winesburg, Ohio are books of moments, and Toomer and Anderson use universal themes to weave … Read more
There is a worn-out old saying about how when a door closes, there will always be a window to crawl through instead. But what if the window has bars on it? Or what if it is too high for someone to reach without anyone to give them a boost, and no one seems to be … Read more
People must make sacrifices every single day. Whether such sacrifice serves to benefit them, those around them, or society in general, people find that decisions to give up aspects of their lives are prevalent in human nature. Both spectrums of this theme are thoroughly explored in Grace Ogot’s The Rain Came. Often, in tribal cultures … Read more
