This parable from Leo Tolstoy is about how to succeed in life. A king believes he would never fail in a task if he always knew three things: What is the best time to begin? Who are the most important people to have around you? and What is the most important thing to spend your time doing? He offers a reward for the answers, but neither his wisest counselors nor others who come to claim it can help. An experience with a forest hermit and injured assassin teach him what he needs to know. Themes: wisdom, humility, kindness, forgiveness, morality. More…
Category Archives: Short Stories
The Fortune-Teller
This story by Joaquim Maria Machado de Assis involves a love triangle between life-long best friends and a woman who is married to one of them. The sceptical lover laughs when the woman consults a fortune-teller for comfort that their relationship will last. Shortly afterwards, he begins to receive anonymous letters claiming that their affair is public knowledge. Ironically, when the husband sends a note asking for an urgent meeting at his house, the frightened lover visits the same fortune-teller for comfort that he is not walking into a trap. Themes include betrayal, adultery, superstition, fate. More…
The Judgment (The Verdict)
On the surface, this story by Franz Kafka is about a troubled man’s relationship with his frail but dominating father. The father thinks his son is trying to ease him out of their successful business. The son communicates regularly with a ‘friend’ in Russia, who may be an imaginary alter ego. The father says the friend would be more a son after my own heart, and judges his son guilty of selfishness and betrayal. He sentences him to death by drowning, which the son promptly carries out. Themes: loneliness, insecurity, bachelorhood vs. marriage, patriarchy, father-son relationships, crime, guilt, punishment. More…
The Ring
In this coming of age story by Isak Dinesen (aka Karen Blixen), a recently married nineteen-year-old woman from a wealthy family is confronted by violence for the first time. Having led a sheltered life, the woman has an innocent, child-like view of the world, and in particular her husband’s commitment to improving their farm. Her married bliss is shattered by a chance encounter with a man covered in blood who is on the run for theft and murder. The triggers a re-evaluation of her naïve views on life and marriage. Themes: loss of innocence, responsibility, sexuality, violence, identity/self-awareness, consciousness. More…
The Bear
William Faulkner published several versions of this classic story, the most notable of which are a short story that appeared in the Saturday Evening Post and a novel-sized chapter in his book, Go Down, Moses. In the short story, an unnamed boy becomes a skilled woodsman over six years of annual hunting trips. His dream is to bag “Old Ben”, a huge bear that has terrorized farmers on the fringes of their hunting grounds for years. When he finally gets the chance, he doesn’t shoot. Themes: family, land and people ownership, racial identity, love of and respect for the wilderness. More…
The Pearl of Love
In this story by H. G. Wells an Indian prince, devastated by the death of his young wife, has her body entombed in a sarcophagus and begins to build a magnificent shrine around it that he names the Pearl of Love. Over the years he makes the memorial grander and grander, until one day he tires of it. He not only disassembles the shrine, but also has the sarcophagus removed because it blocks his view of the lord of mountains. Themes include love, loss, grief, art and artistry, the nature of beauty, time and healing. More…
The Outsider
H. P. Lovecraft was a pioneer of cosmic horror, a sub-genre in which gothic settings and “other-worldly” elements replace shock and gore. A feature of his writing is nightmare-like plot twists that defy logic or reason. Here, a man grows up alone in a decaying castle set among frightening woods. When he climbs the crumbling castle tower to look further afield, he finds a stone slab that leads to an earth-like world above the clouds. He is excited to encounter other people, but soon learns a frightening truth. Themes include alternative reality, isolation and loneliness, social rejection, alienation, self-discovery. More…
A Day in the Dark
In this story by Elizabeth Bowen, a woman recalls when, as a fifteen-year-old girl “platonically” in love with her uncle, she was forced to re-examine their relationship. The source of her concern were snide comments by an old woman the uncle had fallen into talk with, which caused her to think that their comings and goings were the subject of town gossip. A feature of the story is the ambiguity as to the true feelings between the main characters, and the reason for the uncle’s clandestine visit to a hotel. Themes include innocence and experience, sexual awareness, deception, guilt, rumour. More…
Children of the Ash-Covered Loam
This charming story by N. V. M. Gonzalez describes life and ritual during the planting season in a Philippine subsistence farming family. The major conflict in the story, where families band together to communally sow each other’s kaingin (slashed and burned fields), is with nature. A feature of the story is the coming of age of a seven-year-old boy as he receives his first farming responsibility and comes to understand how life emerges from the dark womb of the land. Themes include family, community, living in harmony with the land, the cycle of life, superstition and ritual. More…
A Guide to Berlin
This early story by Vladimir Nabokov is not about places to see in Berlin, but rather the narrator’s observations of some everyday aspects of city life. Through a series of vignettes he describes pipes left on the footpath, the streetcar system, people he sees working on the streets, the city zoo and the pub in which he is drinking with a friend. The major theme is the relationship between time and memory: how some things we experience today will become “future recollections”, and the artist’s duty to record his/her experiences in detail for the benefit of future generations. More…
Henne Fire
Set in pre-World War 1 Poland, this story by Isaac Bashevis Singer explores how a small Jewish community interacts with a seemingly deranged woman who the narrator describes as not a human being but a fire from Gehenna [hell]. Her abusive behaviour forces her family to flee their home and, in keeping with the biblical analogy, small fires tend to pop up around her wherever she lives. A major theme of the story is community, reflected in the support she receives despite her offensive behaviour and the fire risk to neighbors. Other themes include madness, fear, alcohol abuse, the supernatural. More…
The Garden Party
Because of the complex issues raised, this is one of Katherine Mansfield’s most highly acclaimed stories. A wealthy family enjoy an ostentatious garden party in the spacious grounds of their mansion, fully aware that the father of a poverty-stricken family living within hearing distance died in an accident earlier the same day. Only one family member (a teen-aged girl) is sensitive to the poor family’s plight. She visits the house to offer condolences, and experiences an epiphany when unexpectedly ushered in to view the body. Themes include social class (class-consciousness, pretention, insensitivity towards others), poverty, innocence, humanity, coming of age. More…
Stories of the Bad & Good Little Boys
We are presenting these stories from Samuel Clemens (aka Mark Twain) together because, although the characters appear to be opposites, they actually support the same themes: 1) all people have a bad and/or selfish side; and 2) whether good or bad, people don’t always get the reward/punishment they deserve. While the bad boy appears inherently evil, the “good” boy’s motivation is his selfish wish for eternal praise. With its over-the-top sarcasm, the story of the bad little boy has an even more depressing message… bad boys grow into bad men, and the worst of them end up becoming successful politicians! More…
Faith, Love, Time and Dr. Lazaro
The major themes of this story by Gregorio C. Brillantes are expressed in the title. A country doctor, disillusioned by the suffering of patients and his oldest son’s suicide, has lost faith in religion and become detached from his deeply religious wife and younger son. As the son accompanies him on a late night house call to attend a dying baby, he realizes how out of touch the two have become. Upon their return, he has a momentary epiphany: for things like love, there was only so much time. Other themes include indifference, isolation, duty, father-son relationships, poverty. More…
The Sea of Lost Time
The seaside town in this story by Gabriel Garcia Marquez is a smelly, unpleasant place. With every incoming tide, the ocean brings garbage and rotting fish. Many people have moved away; the town is dying. Things change when a local man, Tobias, notices something different about the sea breeze. It smells like roses. Weekend visitors begin to arrive. There is music and dancing again. One of the visitors is a strange foreigner with bags of money. He gives it away to people who ‘do things’ for him, and one day shows Tobias the secret of what lies beneath the waves. More…
Poonek
In this story by Lim Beng Hap, a young man returns to his riverside village in Sarawak after ten years absence at school. The only thing that has changed is that a girl who had been his constant childhood companion has grown into a beautiful woman. When the girl’s father offers her to the young man in marriage, he initially declines. The belief among his people is that refusing such an offer makes him Poonek (likely to suffer a disaster), and he soon has a warning encounter with a crocodile. Themes include tradition, superstition, patriarchy, 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…
The Storm / At the ‘Cadian Ball
Kate Chopin’s The Storm is widely considered one of her best stories. As a wild storm rages outside, a farmer’s wife (Calixta) and wealthy plantation-owner who had stopped for shelter (Alcée) engage in wild, stormy sex inside. Although both are married, neither feels guilty about the tryst. Afterwards, Calixta continues family life as normal, though seemingly more contented. Themes: family, passionless marriage, lust. In order to fully understand the characters, it is helpful to read the story’s prequel, At the ‘Cadian Ball. Calixta and Alcée were once infatuated with each other, but class and race differences kept them apart. More…
Dead Stars
This story by Paz Marquez Benitez is set in a culture and time where honor outweighs love. A young lawyer delays marrying his fiancé for three years because it doesn’t feel right. Although he falls in love with another, he keeps his word, marries the fiancé, and dreams of the other woman for eight years. He likens the dreams to seeing the light of dead stars, long extinguished, yet seemingly still in their appointed places in the heavens. When he sees the other woman again, the light has gone out. Themes: courtship, fidelity, forbidden love, honor, regret, understanding. More…
Through the Tunnel
This coming of age story by Doris Lessing takes place as a British mother and her eleven-year-old son holiday at a foreign seaside resort. While the mother enjoys their regular “safe” swimming beach, she allows the boy to explore a nearby rocky cove. There, he watches local teenage boys as they dive from rocks and appear to navigate their way through a long underwater tunnel. Determined to match the dangerous feat and prove he is no longer a child, he practices for several days before trying himself. Themes include identity, isolation, independence, determination, courage, self-discipline and self-control. More…
Dr Heidegger’s Experiment
In this story from Nathaniel Hawthorne, an ageing scientist invites four elderly friends to participate in an experiment ostensibly designed to test the efficacy of the waters of the fabled fountain of youth. The inclusion of several supernatural elements in the plot clouds whether the “water’s” effect was real, imagined or faked by substituting alcohol. However, as each friend had a major character flaw in their youth, it is probable that the experiment had a different thesis, which is proved by their behavior after drinking. Themes: ageing, failing to learn from past mistakes, obsession with youthfulness and appearance, the supernatural. More…
Marriage Is a Private Affair
The major themes of this early story by Chinua Achebe are generational conflict and change/progress. A young Nigerian couple living in 1950s Lagos decide to get married. They are from different ethnic groups, which causes tension with the man’s village-based father. He is from the Igbo ethnic group in which marriages are traditionally arranged by parents and restricted to others within the group. When the couple marry in defiance of tradition, the man’s father cuts off contact. Eight years later, a letter and rainstorm cause him to regret the decision. Other themes: family, tradition, bigotry, gender roles, defiance, pride, remorse. More…
Aftermath
This story by Mary Yukari Waters deals with several often overlooked aspects of war: its effect on the families of those who don’t return, the resultant scarcity of basic necessities, and the impact of occupational forces on the lives of the loser. In the aftermath of World War 2, a young Japanese mother struggles to deal with the loss of her husband, her young son’s growing Americanisation and dimming memories of his father, and the fundamental shifts taking place in Japanese society. Themes include loss, grief, memory, customs and tradition, motherhood, change. More…
The Enormous Radio
Like many John Cheever stories, the major themes of The Enormous Radio are appearances vs. reality and the myth of urban bliss. Other themes include eavesdropping, obsession, secrecy, smugness, self-delusion and hypocrisy. A seemingly contented couple’s life changes when a malfunctioning radio begins to pick up conversations from people in surrounding apartments. The woman becomes obsessed with listening in and, after learning her neighbors’ secrets about affairs, marital and financial problems, etc., begins to look down on them. This feeling of superiority is soon dashed when her husband points out some unsavory aspects of her own past. More…
The Canal
In this story by Richard Yates, two men at a cocktail party learn that their army divisions fought alongside each other during a bloody World War 2 canal crossing. One boasts about his role in the operation; the other is reluctant to share information. As their wives compete to build up their respective husband’s roles in the fighting, readers learn that although the second man performed equally as bravely, due to some mistakes along the way he would rather forget what happened. Themes include memory, conceit, gender roles, glorification of war vs. the reality of war, self-esteem, humiliation and shame. More…
The Guilty Party – An East Side Tragedy
This story by O. Henry takes recent events in America, where parents have been found partly responsible when their child commits murder, to a new level. A young man boasts to friends that he will teach his fiancée a lesson by taking another girl to a dance. The fiancée makes good her promise to kill him if he does, then flees and commits suicide. A heavenly court absolves her of the crime, blaming a red-haired, unshaven, untidy man, sitting by a window reading while his children play in the streets.. Themes include guilt and innocence, parental neglect, love, betrayal, redemption. More…
To the Man On the Trail
In this Jack London story, a group of Alaskan miners celebrating Christmas greet a stranger warmly. The man is in a hurry. He shares a drink, passes around a picture of his family, and asks to be awakened in four hours to be on his way. Shortly after he leaves, a policeman arrives claiming the stranger had stolen $40,000. The men are initially angry at being deceived. However, when they learn he had only stolen money owed to him, they drink to the stranger’s good luck and “confusion to the police”. Themes include camaraderie, betrayal, morality, wilderness justice. More…
Where I’m Calling From
This Raymond Carver story describes how a friendship that develops between two strangers attending an alcohol drying-out retreat puts both on the road to recovery. The story’s message is that while acceptance that you have an alcohol problem is an important first step, true recovery begins when you acknowledge the damage it has caused to the lives of yourself and your loved ones, and are prepared to face up to your demons. The story also recognizes that, post-recovery, there is a high likelihood of a relapse. Themes: substance abuse, alienation, loneliness and the need for human connection, self-awareness, fear, hope.
Gooseberries
For me, the major theme of this philosophical story by Anton Chekhov (the nature of happiness) is conveyed through the symbolization of the plateful of gooseberries. This can be expressed in two seemingly conflicting idioms: one man’s (Ivan’s brother’s) sweet taste of success can leave a sour taste in someone else’s mouth. Put Chekhov’s way, complete happiness shouldn’t exist because it requires contributing to and/or being indifferent to the suffering of others; true fulfillment in life only comes from doing good. Other themes: obsession, greed, ego, class, isolation, mortality, city vs. country life, the beauty of nature. More…
Beware of the Dog
This story by Roald Dahl opens with a World War 2 fighter pilot trying to get his badly damaged plane back to England. As he muses about how stoically he will tell his ground crew that he has lost a leg, he is forced to bail out. He wakes up, his injuries already treated, in hospital. He is initially relieved to learn that he had landed in Brighton. However, over the next twenty-four hours, he gradually realizes that something is wrong. Themes: war casualties, courage, determination, deception (looks can be deceiving), duty.. More…
The Man with the Rose
In this story by Manuel Rojas, an evangelical priest is predictably dismissive when a man says he has “black magical” powers. The man begs to be put to the test, claiming that, if locked in a room for an hour, he can retrieve any distant object the priest nominates. The priest’s orderly view of the universe is shattered; not only when the man hands him a unique rose he requested from a Santiago convent, but also by what he saw when he unlocked the door and crept into the room twenty-five minutes early. Themes include religion, disbelief, disillusionment, the supernatural. More…
The Cow of the Barricades
This story from Raja Rao takes place during India’s struggle for independence from British rule. It highlights two major aspects of the conflict: the people’s desire for self-government, and the division within the people between those who supported Gandhi’s directive of passive resistance and those who advocated violent confrontation. The symbol of Gandhian resolution is a revered cow (a holy animal in Hindu culture) which, like many such advocates over the years, is martyred for the cause after leading a crowd of peaceful protesters to barricades as fighting is about to begin. Themes: independence, faith, nonviolent resolution of conflict. More…
Stones in My Passway, Hellhound on My Trail
This story from T. C. Boyle is a fictionalized account of the last night in the life of American blues musician Robert Johnson. Although heralded today as a master of the blues, he received little acclaim while alive and led an itinerant, poorly disciplined life. A rumour circulating at the time was that Johnson had sold his soul to the devil in exchange for musical prowess. The story suggests that it was a jilted woman, rather than a hellhound collecting the devil’s due, that brought about his demise. Themes include death, fate vs. free will, music, self-indulgence and jealousy. More…
The Scarlet Ibis
This tragic story from James Hurst contrasts the innocent outlook of a physically challenged boy with the pride and cruelty of his older brother. It is as if the older boy has two younger brothers: the imaginative storyteller that he clearly loves, and the disabled boy he is ashamed to be associated with. In an effort to mould Doodle to meet his expectations, he pushes the poor lad to a point where his heart can no longer bear the strain. Themes: the beauty and power of nature, acceptance vs. desire to change others, love vs. shame, cruelty, death, regret. More…
Jacklighting
In this story by Ann Beattie, a troubled couple who have travelled from New York to Virginia each year to visit a free-spirited friend and his brother on his birthday, make the trip once more on the birthday following his death. The trip is ostensibly to comfort the friend’s brother. Ironically, although each of them clearly loved the dead man and is in need of closure, they suppress their feelings and do not even talk about him. Themes include friendship, the burdens and unpredictability of life and death, death as relief from suffering, grief and mourning. More…
Here We Are
This story by Dorothy Parker comprises a dialog between a young newlywed couple traveling by train to their honeymoon destination. It is clear that both are nervous, and that their relationship has hitherto been platonic. The bride appears particularly insecure, and challenges several things her new husband says as indications that he doesn’t care for her, her family, and her taste in fashion. She is looking for affirmation of his love, which he provides, and deflecting thoughts of what they both know will happen that evening. Themes include marriage, innocence, communication, insecurity, jealousy, embarrassment, sex. More…
The Ones Who Walk Away From Omelas
This philosophical narrative by Ursula Le Guin describes life in the seemingly utopian city of Omelas. We learn that almost everyone in the city lives in complete happiness. There is no organized system of rule, few laws, sexual freedom, no crime, no violence, and nobody living in want. Sadly, there is a blight on this “paradise”. For happiness to prevail, a single child must live in absolute misery, locked up alone in an underground cell. Themes: morality and moral compromise (the price of happiness), victimization, complicity (collective knowledge = shared responsibility), guilt, courage (the ones who “walk away”). More…
The Gold-legged Frog
In this touching story by Khamsing Srinawk, a Thai farmer must leave his dying son in the hands of faith-healers and herbalists to grovel in front of local officials for a 200 baht government handout. He gets the money but, contrary to what other villagers say, it’s not his lucky day. Major themes are the harshness of nature on farming communities, and the abuse of power by the Thai authorities of the day (the late 1950s) in dealing with them. Other themes include family, poverty, suffering, helplessness, survival, superstition, social class, and “luck”. More…
The Boarded Window
In this short gothic horror story from Ambrose Bierce, a boarded window symbolizes a grieving and possibly PTSD affected man’s desire to shut himself off from the outside world. Murlock shows no signs of traditional mourning over his wife’s passing, so his decision to live as he does could well result from a sense of shame and/or guilt over his part in her death. As we have only his version of the night’s events, it could even be that (with or without a panther) his wild shot was the reason for her throat wound! Themes: isolation, death, shame/guilt, loneliness. More…
A Sound of Thunder
What is the most dangerous thing about time travel? According to this story by Ray Bradbury, it is doing some small thing that may change the future. Five men travel back in time to hunt a T-Rex. One of them panics when he sees the monster and steps off a specially prepared path. Because of this, they return to a very different world. The last thing the clumsy hunter hears is a sound of thunder. Themes: arrogance, cowardice, the dangers of technology, connections between past and present, democracy vs. dictatorship, the ethics of game hunting. More…