Today we are featuring two award-winning stories from Cynthia Ozick. The first, The Shawl, is set in Second World War Poland and deals with the horrors of the holocaust as experienced a young mother (Rosa), her infant child (Magda), and fourteen-year-old-niece (Stella). The second story, Rosa, is a sequel to the first. Set in the USA over thirty years later, it demonstrates the devastating long-term effects of the women’s war-time experiences.
This story by Nikolai Gogol, described by Vladimir Nabokov as the greatest Russian short story ever written, uses pathos and dry humor to get its messages across. The protagonist represents Russia’s working class, eking out a living in a tedious, low-level job. Things improve dramatically when a windfall allows him to buy a new overcoat. Sadly, after a mugger steals the coat, shortcomings in the justice system and failing health contribute to his death. Perhaps metaphorically, his ghost rises up and terrorizes the city in retribution. Themes: alienation, (lack of) connection and compassion, bureaucracy, materialism, social class, the supernatural, revenge.
Dino Buzzati’s Seven Floors is an allegory of both the stages of life, and the futility of trying to fight bureaucracy. A slightly ill patient enters a ward on the top floor of a seven-story sanatorium. He learns that more seriously ill patients are progressively moved to lower floors, with the dying relegated to the dreaded first floor. Once caught up in the system, and against his perception of the severity of his illness, he makes the slow, inexorable progression to the bottom. Themes include the inevitability of ageing and death, institutional inflexibility, the unpredictability of life, fear.
The central theme of this humorous story by John Gardner is to respect the views of one’s elders. A dragon ravages a medieval kingdom with some modern touches (clocks, novels, cars and cigars). When the king’s knights and wizard prove ineffective, he calls a town meeting to ask for ideas, promising his daughter’s hand and half his kingdom to anyone who can slay the dragon. After the two older sons of a wise cobbler ignore their father’s advice and fail, their nervous younger son heeds his words and succeeds. Other themes include social class, honor, and courage (overcoming one’s fears).
This Ambrose Bierce story contains some of the best descriptive language in American literature… so much so that most people will need to read the passage at least twice in order to properly appreciate it. All I can say about the plot without spoiling the experience for those who haven’t read it is that the surprise ending usually sticks in reader’s minds for some time. The major themes: sense of duty; love and sacrifice; the brutality of war; confronting death; near-death experiences; and time (the length of a moment) as reflected in the personification metaphor time stood still.
Kate Chopin’s ‘respectable woman’ is happily married and looking forward to spending quality time with her husband. She is so disappointed when he invites an old school friend to visit that she decides to be polite but not friendly towards him. At first, the two barely communicate. However, there is a growing chemistry between them. This disturbs the woman, who finds an excuse to visit an Aunt for the remainder of his stay. When the woman learns the man will visit again, she tells her husband: I have overcome everything! Overcome what? Does she plan to remain a ‘respectable woman’?
In this story by Anton Chekhov, a young man plays a trick on a terrified lady-friend by whispering a ghostly I love you as they speed down a mountain on a toboggan. Unsure of what she heard, the woman asks the man to repeat the ride over and over. Each time they do so, he whispers the same words. Soon it becomes an obsession and every day she wants to go up the mountain to listen for the words. Her reaction when she thinks she has the answer is a surprise. Themes include fear, innocence, playful deception, confusion, obsession, regret.
This 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.