In this suspenseful mystery by Edith Wharton, a young woman marries a recently widowed man who admits to having been intensely in love with his deceased wife of twelve years. Everything seems perfect until a series of strange letters arrive, addressed to the husband in obviously feminine handwriting. The letters deeply disturb the husband, who refuses to disclose the sender or the contents. When the husband disappears and the secret of the letters is revealed, it appears that his dead wife may have won a ghostly contest. Themes: love, family, jealousy, honesty and mutual trust in marriage, alienation, he supernatural. More…
Theft
The major theme of this story by Katherine Anne Porter is loss… a stolen purse, lost friendships and opportunities, loss in love, loss of youth, and loss of hope. The real “robber” in the story is the protagonist, a struggling, ‘not so young’ writer who prides herself on her trusting, easy-going, unmaterialistic nature. After receiving a letter ending a love affair and later having her purse stolen, she realizes that if she doesn’t take charge of her life and stop “letting things go”, she will end up with nothing. Other themes include apathy and self-delusion, alienation, love, rejection, guilt. More…
The Adventure of the Speckled Band
This story, considered by Arthur Conan Doyle to be his best Sherlock Holmes mystery, features one of his most creative (and unlikeliest) murder plots. Thirty-year-old Helen, Holmes’s client, is a victim of Victorian attitudes towards women. Fearing for their future, her dead mother had decided that she and twin sister Julia would not receive their inheritances until they married. Their violent stepfather, who manages the money, will become destitute should either of them wed. After announcing her engagement, Julia dies under mysterious circumstances. Helen fears that she will be next. Themes: decay, isolation, fear, murder, class, greed, hasty judgement, justice. More…
Snapshots of a Wedding
Set in the mid-1990s, this story by Bessie Head explores two aspects of a Botswanan wedding. The first is the rituals observed at the event and how, as a “modern wedding”, a lot of the traditional courtesies had been left out of the planning. The second is the circumstances leading up to the wedding, with the author seemingly inviting readers to judge whether the groom, who is rich in cattle and loved and respected by all who knew him, made the right choice for a bride. Themes: tradition vs. modernity, marriage, education, hubris vs. humility, money and status vs. love. More…
Games at Twilight
This story from Anita Desai highlights what children did in the evening before the electronic age: played together outside! Although set in India, it could have taken place almost anywhere in the world. A sensitive young boy playing ‘tag’ with his siblings courageously hides out in a dark and threatening shed. He loses track of time and is shattered when he emerges to claim the glory and finds the other children have forgotten about him and moved on. Major theme: the disillusionment that comes with confronting your potential insignificance in the world. Other themes: identity, fear, courage, expectation, disappointment, humiliation. More…