Featured Stories

First Love

First Love: Short story by Samuel BeckettMany readers have difficulty with Samuel Beckett’s post-World War 2 stories such as this one because of their stream-of-consciousness narrative approach. In this darkly comic dramatic monologue a reclusive, indolent man recalls how, after being evicted from the family home following his father’s death, he became infatuated with a prostitute he met on a canal-side bench. The more he tried to break away the closer they became until, after moving into her apartment, she gave him cause to leave her for good… a baby. Themes include misanthrope, self-obsession, love, misogyny, sexuality, the emptiness and futility of life.

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The Far and the Near

The Far and the Near: Short story by Thomas WolfeThis story from Thomas Wolfe is about perception, connection and disappointment. A railway engineer works the same route for over twenty years. Every day, he pays particular attention to a small, well-kept farmhouse from which a woman, and later a woman and child, emerge to wave cheerfully as the train passes. He feels a special connection with them, which helps through the monotony and occasional tragedies encountered in his work. On retirement, he decides to pay the woman a visit. This does not go as he had planned. Themes: appearances, false assumptions, confusion, isolation, suspicion, disillusionment, regret.

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A&P

A&P: Short story by John UpdikeJohn Updike’s A&P reflects some common Middle American attitudes before the social upheavals of the 1960s. A supermarket employee (Sammy) resigns when three girls in swimsuits are rudely asked to leave the store. Themes include appearance, respect, sexuality, humiliation, class and choices. I don’t share the common interpretation that Sammy’s actions are heroic. The misogyny evident in his denigrating, sexist descriptions of the girls and cruel references to other customers suggest that he is not as righteous as he makes out. Would such a person really quit because of Lengel’s treatment of the girls, or could there be another reason?

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The Story of a Disappearance and an Appearance

The Story of a Disappearance and an Appearance: Short story by M. R. JamesThis story by M. R. James is in the form of four letters a man sends his brother as he travels to a small village to investigate the disappearance of their uncle. After an extensive search the uncle, a clergyman, is presumed dead. A highlight of the story is a vivid dream the nephew has of a frightening, life-like Punch and Judy show. This foreshadows the denouement… When a real Punch and Judy show comes to town the next day, the missing man rises from the dead and exacts vengeance. Themes include mystery, murder, revenge, justice, the supernatural.

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Women in Their Beds

Women in their Beds: Short story by Gina BerriaultGina Berriault’s protagonist is a struggling young actress who has just begun a day job as a social worker in the women’s ward of a city hospital. With no qualifications or experience, she finds it hard to maintain clinical detachment and begins to identify with the suffering, often troubled women in the ward. She reflects on turning points in her own life, and concludes that women are shaped by the beds (a metaphor for common life experiences) they have chosen, or someone else has chosen for them, to lie in. Themes: empathy, choice vs. superstition/destiny, identity, aloneness, connection.

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Spunk

Spunk: Short story by Zora Neale HurstonIn Zora Neale Hurston’s Spunk, a mild-mannered man (Joe) is killed when he bravely but foolishly confronts his cheating wife and her macho lover. The story raises some interesting questions. Did Joe act out of love for his wife, or shame because she had humiliated him? Why did he stop at a store on the way? Was he hoping the “loungers” would talk him out of going, and too weak to back down when one of them encouraged him? Finally, who or what caused Spunk to fall into the saw? Themes include love and passion, courage and fear, the supernatural.

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Melvin in the Sixth Grade

Melvin in the Sixth Grade: Short story by Dana JohnsonThe major theme of this story by Dana Johnson is maintaining one’s identity vs. the desire to “fit in”. A sixth grade girl is having trouble settling in at a new school. The only African-American in class, she is ostracized and made fun of because of her race and appearance. Her only friend is Melvin, a strange-looking boy from Oklahoma she describes as “my beautiful alien from Planet Cowboy”. Melvin appears proud of his identity. She is so desperate to be accepted by the others that, when forced to choose, she forsakes him. Other themes: racism, bullying, appearance, friendship, betrayal.

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Lamb to the Slaughter

Lamb to the Slaughter: Short story by Roald DahlThe title of this story by Roald Dahl may have a clever double meaning. On the one hand, we have a woman who uses a lamb, or rather a frozen leg of lamb, to kill her husband. On the other, it may relate to the English idiom “Like a lamb to the Slaughter”. This would lead to the question: Which of the characters (the husband, the wife or both) could be described as someone going calmly about their business, not knowing that something very unpleasant is about to happen to them? Themes include betrayal, identity/gender stereotyping, injustice and revenge.

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