Featured Stories

Usher II

Usher II: Short story by Ray BradburyFirst published in 1950 as Carnival of Madness, this story by Ray Bradbury is also included in his anthologies The Martian Chronicles and The Illustrated Man. A wealthy book-lover, angry about destruction of his extensive library because of fantasy and horror story censorship on Earth, builds a look-alike version of Edgar Allan Poe’s House of Usher on Mars. He invites prominent book-banners to a party at the house, where they meet different Poe-inspired ends. Themes include censorship vs. personal freedom, the importance of speculative fiction, the danger of excess political correctness, zealotry (in this case, taking a protest too far!)

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Hills Like White Elephants

Hills Like White Elephants: Short story by Ernest HemingwayThis story by Ernest Hemingway is aptly set at a railway junction. A couple waiting for a train have an important decision to make that will determine the direction of their lives. Unfortunately, they have reached a point in their relationship where they find it hard to open up and talk about their feelings. Although the man says he will leave it up to the woman, he puts subtle pressure on her to choose his way. Themes: perspective (male vs. female views on pregnancy and abortion), choices and consequences (freedom vs. family), language and communication (disconnection), dependence and control.

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The Summer Solstice

The Summer Solstice: Short story by Nick JoaquinThis story by Filipino writer Nick Joaquin takes place over the final two days of a “hybrid” religious festival. Because both take place over the summer solstice, the Catholic feast of St John and pagan Tadtarin fertility rituals are celebrated together. Tadtarin is performed exclusively by women (or men dressed up as women), invoking their power to ensure a bountiful harvest. Events lead to an unsettling climax where a usually submissive wife pitilessly humiliates her rich landowner husband. Themes include gender stereotypes (especially male domination and cruelty towards women) and cultural changes brought about by Westernization.

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The Colour Out of Space

The Colour Out of Space: Short story by H. P. LovecraftIn this cosmic horror story by H. P. Lovecraft, a surveyor becomes curious about five acres of grey desolation known as “blasted heath”. He learns that a meteor like no other found on earth had landed near a farmhouse on the site. Within the meteor scientists found a globule of unearthly colour which, when cracked open, released a presence that caused every living thing nearby to mutate. Plants grew unnaturally large but were inedible. Animal life, including the farming family, went mad and deformed into grotesque shapes before dying. Themes include curiosity, fear, scepticism, the supernatural, realms beyond human understanding.

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The Blue Bead

The Blue Bead: Short story by Norah BurkeThis story by Norah Burke explores the simple, yet dangerous life of junglis (jungle and wild forest dwellers) in colonial India. A twelve-year-old girl, whose “life from birth to death is marked for work”, dreams about being able to complete a necklace she has started to make. When she saves a villager by fighting off a four-meter crocodile, she is more excited by a blue bead she later finds in the water than the danger she faced. Themes include poverty, life and survival in the forest, gender roles, perseverance, courage, reward/karma, finding happiness in small things.

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Only Goodness

Only Goodness: Short story by Jhumpa LahiriIn this Jhumpa Lahiri story a Bengali-American woman successfully navigates growing up in a strict environment where her parents compensate for their lack of love for one another by high expectations of their children. This is not true of her more academically gifted younger brother, whose alcohol abuse shames her parents in the eyes of the local Bengali diaspora. She feels partly responsible for his drinking and subsequent fall, and makes a foolish decision that destroys her husband’s trust and almost costs the life of their child. Themes include cultural identity, sibling relationships, parental expectations, alcoholism, rebellion, alienation, guilt, trust.

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A Night in the Hills

A Night in the Hills: Short story by Paz Marquez BenitezThis story from Paz Marquez Benitez deals with something many people caught up in a routine job or coming to a crossroads in life go through… dreaming of escape to an alternative, seemingly more appealing lifestyle. City-based Gerardo has always dreamed of living in the countryside. Recently widowed, he accompanies a friend to inspect some newly opened public land. After a single night in the jungle, he decides that life “in the hills” is not as appealing as he had imagined. Themes: imagination (the grass is always greener), city vs. country life, discontent, enlightenment, acceptance.

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The Jungle

The Jungle: Short story by Elizabeth BowenThe “jungle” in this story by Elizabeth Bowen is a sealed-off area of woods overgrown with tussocks of bramble (blackberry bush) near an English boarding school. It becomes a secret haven for a lonely student, a fifteen-year-old girl who has difficulty maintaining friendships with others in her class. Things change when she breaks tradition and bonds with a girl in another class. The relationship has its ups and downs, largely because of her new friend’s assertiveness, and culminates in an implied sexual awakening in the jungle. Themes include alienation, teenage relationships, social class, escape, sexuality.

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