Strange things are happening in the school featured in this story by Donald Barthelme. First, all plants and animals in student projects die. Death seems to be everywhere when an adopted dog, sponsored Korean orphan, and higher than average numbers of parents pass on. Then, to cap it all off, two students are killed in an accident while playing on a building site. In order to experience renewal of life, students ask their teacher to demonstrate sex with his teaching assistant. But just as they kiss and things start to get interesting, something happens that makes the children cheer wildly. More…
Silent Snow, Secret Snow
Conrad Aiken’s Silent Snow, Secret Snow is a psychological horror fantasy. It begins with a twelve-year-old boy (Paul) imagining overnight snowfalls. This leads to a growing fascination with snow, the thought of which provides relief from the mundane routine of his daily life, the ugliness of the world around him, parent-child conflicts, and awakening sexuality. As the imagined snowfalls increase, Paul begins to lose touch with reality. In the disturbing climax, his boy’s “snow voices” come alive and he completely withdraws into himself as they tell him a story. Major themes: mental illness, concealment, detachment and alienation. More…
That in Aleppo Once…
The title of this Vladimir Nabokov story is an allusion to Shakespeare’s Othello. Several characters reflect those in the famous play, and it shares the same major theme (jealousy). The story is more than the tale of a deceitful, adulterous wife who may have only married the older narrator to escape the German occupation. The narrator’s heartbreak has caused him to question not only his wife’s existence, but also whether life is worth living. His letter is an attempt to unburden himself, and create some hope for the future. Other themes: escape, betrayal, deception, uncertainty, suicide (implied by the title). More…
The Cop and the Anthem
Written in 1904, the major theme of this story by O. Henry (the plight of the homeless) is perhaps even more relevant today. A homeless man who lives on the streets in the warmer months tries in vain to commit a petty crime so he can spend the winter in prison. After trying every trick he knows to get arrested, he stops outside a church. The ambience and stirring music being played bring about an epiphany, thoughts of reform … and jail. Other themes include social class, crime and punishment, resilience, poverty mindset vs. ambition and hope. More…
Mrs. Spring Fragrance
This story by Sui Sin Far explores the “Americanization” of Chinese immigrant families in the early 1900s. A Chinese-American woman (Mrs. Spring Fragrance) helps her neighbor’s daughter escape an arranged marriage so that she can marry her true love. Thanks to a misunderstanding over a line of poetry, when she travels to another city to find a suitable match for the other man, her husband suspects she is having an affair with him. Through extensive use of irony, the story highlights themes of jealousy, culture clash, identity, gender roles, and community and political racism and discrimination. More…