The Lost Child

The Lost Child: Short story by Mulk Raj AnandMulk Raj Anand’s The Lost Child can be looked at on two levels. At its most basic, it is about a boy who gets so carried away by the excitement of a fair that he becomes separated from his parents. Alone in the arms of a kind stranger, all he wants is to be reunited with his mother and father. On another level, it is a story of life. When young, we can’t wait to leave home and make our way in the world. It is not until we lose our parents that we understand how important they really are.

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The Easthound

The Easthound: Short story by Nalo HopkinsonThis post-apocalyptic horror story by Nalo Hopkinson redefines the concept of puberty. A virus has swept the world, causing all who achieve adulthood to “sprout” into ravenous, werewolf-like beasts. To escape them, children hide in small groups. The story is told from the perspective of twin sisters, one of whom naively believes she caused the virus by inventing the word easthound. Their group are closely monitoring an older boy who is about to undergo the change and will soon have to leave them, when the unexpected occurs. Themes include violence, camaraderie, survival, childhood innocence, adult predation.

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The Lottery

The Lottery: Short story by Shirley JacksonAuthor Shirley Jackson had no idea of the angry reaction The Lottery would receive when it first appeared in 1948. The story tells how each year the otherwise ‘normal’ people in a small American farming town perform a gruesome ritual to ensure a favorable growing season. The major theme is how herd or mob mentality can drive people to do things they would never consider individually. Other themes include dystopia, gender roles, violence and cruelty (human sacrifice), acceptance (the blind following of tradition), and man’s inhumanity to man (the potential for evil in all of us).

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How to Tell a True War Story

How to Tell a True War Story: Short story by Tim O'BrienThis metafictional story by Tim O’Brien uses observations on a small collection of stories related by soldiers to highlight the difficulty of faithfully communicating one’s wartime experiences. His central argument is that in war it’s difficult to separate what happened from what seemed to happen and therefore you lose your sense of the definite, hence your sense of truth itself. This leads to the seemingly paradoxical conclusion that in a true war story nothing is ever absolutely true. Themes include the nature of truth in storytelling, memories vs. imagination, the trauma of war, morality.

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Long Walk to Forever

Long Walk to Forever: Short story by Kurt VonnegutKurt Vonnegut described this semi-autobiographical tale, written in honor of his wife, as a sickeningly slick love story. A satire of the “love at first sight” romance cliché, it describes how, after a platonic friendship of almost twenty years, a single expression of love and two kisses is all it takes for Catharine to question her plans to marry another man and fall into Newt’s arms. Themes include communication (failure to express/discuss their feelings sooner), taking people for granted (Newt didn’t appreciate how much Catharine meant to him until almost losing her!), and fighting for what is important in life.

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The Imp of the Perverse

The Imp of the Perverse: Short story by Edgar Allan PoeLike two of our earlier Edgar Allan Poe tales (The Back Cat and The Tell-Tale Heart), this story involves an unreliable, unhinged narrator facing execution for murder trying to account for his crime. He blames his actions on an agent he claims to be in all of us called the “Imp of the Perverse”. The Imp, he argues, is an urge that drives people to do things they shouldn’t for the simple reason that they know it to be wrong. Ironically, the Imp that drove him to murder also drove him to confess. Themes include perverseness, obsession, madness, self-destruction.

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The Ant and The Grasshopper

The Ant and The Grasshopper: Short story by W. Somerset MaughamThis story by W. Somerset Maugham takes its name from a famous Aesop fable. The fable carries the message that hard work is rewarded, while laziness leads to disaster. The story presents a more balanced view of the world. Sometimes good things happen to lazy or even quite bad people, causing them to be better off than those who work hard every day. After years of hard work, Gordon Ramsay (the Ant) is rewarded with a comfortable retirement. He thinks it unfair when his brother Tom (the Grasshopper) ends up many times richer after a life of laziness and cheating others.

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In the Middle of the Fields

In the Middle of the Fields: Short story by Mary LavinThis story from Mary Lavin highlights the isolation, vulnerability and resilience of a recently widowed farmer’s wife. Its major theme is the need to “move on” after the death of a loved one. Having decided to manage the farm herself, she hires a neighbor to “top” (trim) the long grass in her fields. The neighbor visits that night seeking to defer the work. She bests him with her knowledge of farming practices and, after rejecting an inappropriate advance, realizes that he is yet to get over a similar loss that occurred many years earlier. Other themes: passion, grief, fear, sexism.

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