Arthur Cavanaugh’s Miss Awful is about how a sensitive third-grader (Roger) deals with a substitute school teacher who is the direct opposite of his regular one. While the regular teacher is flexible and empowers the children in her class, the substitute (who Roger nicknames Miss Awful) is an ‘old-style’ strict disciplinarian. The change affects Roger so much that he begins to show signs of depression. His fellow students are also unhappy, and the children decide to play a cruel joke on Miss Awful. As the joke plays out some of them, including Roger, realize they may have seriously misjudged her. More…
Misery / The Lament
In this story by Anton Chekhov, sledge driver Iona Potapov is distraught because his son has died and he feels alone in the world. Another translation of the title is “The Lament” (a show of sorrow for someone who has died or something that is gone). The story addresses the question: What could be worse than the sadness associated with losing a loved one? Chekhov’s answer: To feel so lonely and cut off from the world that you have no one to talk to about it.. Themes include grief, discomfort, indifference, cruelty, loneliness, the healing power of animals. More…
The Subliminal Man
This 1963 story from J. G. Ballard envisions a dystopian future where people’s lives are conditioned by subliminal messages disseminated through advertising billboards and the mass media. The hidden messages, which appear to be officially sanctioned ‘to stimulate the economy’, compel people to buy things they don’t need or replace perfectly good recent purchases. Ominously, the major products involved are linked to powerful monopolies. The story is a biting satire of (then) modern advertising and its contribution to the post-war consumerism and rising household debt levels of the 1950s. Themes: conspiracy, technology, advertising, consumerism, debt, dehumanization (loss of free will). More…
Sacred Duty / Mugaddas Farz
In this entertaining story by Ismat Chughtai, two sets of manipulative parents are put in their place after a Muslem girl opts out of an arranged marriage the day before it is due to take place and elopes with a Hindu boy. For the marriage to be recognized as Hindu, the boy’s parents pressure the girl to convert to Hinduism. To save face, her parents later pressure the boy to convert to Islam and the girl to reconvert. Themes include interfaith marriage, generational conflict and personal freedom, manipulation, the lengths that some cultures will go to preserve family honor. More…
The Legend of Sleepy Hollow
The central character of this story by Washington Irving is a greedy city schoolmaster who moves to a school in a sleepy country town and sets about getting rich by marrying the daughter of a wealthy landowner. The teacher’s proposal is rejected, and he disappears one night after being chased by the “ghost” of a headless horseman. Major themes include storytelling (tall-tales), superstition, greed (Ichabod), fickleness (Katrina), ambiguity (in relation to both the horseman’s identity and Ichabod’s fate), and city vs. country perceptions (conniving sophistication vs. integrity and practicality). More…