Featured Stories

Thirst

Thirst: Short story by Ivo AndrićThe major theme of this story by Ivo Andrić is man’s inhumanity to man. Set in a remote Bosnian village shortly after Austrian annexation, gendarmes capture a rebel leader with a festering chest wound. He is thrown in a cell without treatment and denied water until he names his co-conspirators. As the gendarme commander sleeps soundly, his young wife listens to the man’s screams and pleas for water throughout the night. When she finally falls asleep, her husband wakes and forces himself on her. Other themes include justice, duty, betrayal, brutality, isolation and loneliness, despair, sexuality.

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Licked

Licked: Short story by Paul JenningsThe major themes of this very funny story by Paul Jennings are practical jokes and consequences. Young Andrew learns that his father’s boss is coming to dinner. When he overhears his parents making a pact not to criticize his table manners during the meal, he decides to put them to the test. And just in case it looks like they will be able to keep their promise, he hides a ‘secret weapon’ under the table that is sure to make them angry. The secret weapon works, but Andrew hadn’t thought about what problems this might cause for his father’s job.

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The Eatonville Anthology

The Eatonville Anthology: Short story by Zora Neale HurstonRather than a single story, Zora Neale Hurston’s Eatonville Anthology is a series of vignettes and anecdotes about life in a small African-American community outside Orlando, Florida in the early 1920s. Eatonville was Hurston’s hometown, and the power of her anthology is that each story is based on either real people and events or local folklore. This and the use of authentic dialect capture the local color and folksy spirit of the town, and highlight an important theme: the traditional role of storytelling in preserving cultural heritage. Other themes: community, connection, change.

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The Long-Distance Runner

The Long-Distance Runner: Short story by Grace PaleyThis Grace Paley story describes a middle-aged runner’s surreal journey through the now predominantly African American neighborhood in which she grew up. When a thoughtless word leads to screams for help, she shelters for three weeks with the people living in her old family apartment. The story’s major theme is change. While some things are the same (poverty, kindness, motherly love), the world has moved on. The neighborhood has changed (the racial mix, urban decay, a climate of fear), as has the city (‘maleness’, less family unity, drug use). In confronting her past, she learns there is no going back.

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Sorrow-Acre

Sorrow-Acre: Short story by Isak Dinesen (aka Karen Blixen)This story by Isak Dinesen (aka Karen Blixen) has an “overall” plot, a “subordinate” plot, and an “incomplete” plot. The overall plot considers how moves towards democracy elsewhere in Europe might affect late eighteenth-century Danish society. The subordinate plot (the tragic story of a mother given a near-impossible task to save her son) illustrates why change is necessary, and the difficulty the ruling class will have in adjusting to it. The incomplete plot (see below) foreshadows a possible affair between the protagonist and his seventeen-year-old love-starved aunt. Themes: culture and tradition, birthright, duty, feudalism vs. democracy, injustice, motherhood, suffering.

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Bluebeard

Bluebeard: European Folktale by Charles PerraultAs in real life, many folktales have protagonists who attain riches and/or happiness by questionable means. Bluebeard, Charles Perrault’s serial killing nobleman, obviously deserves his fate. However, it is also hard to see how his last wife, who first rejected him based on his looks, seemingly only married him for his riches, and then betrayed his generosity and trust by entering a forbidden room, deserves a “happily ever after” future. Themes include judging by appearances, greed, vanity, betrayal of trust and justice. One question remains: if the beard made women and girls run away, why didn’t Bluebeard shave it off?

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A Letter to God

A Letter to God: Short story by Gregorio López FuentesThis inspirational story by Gregorio López Fuentes is about a hardworking farmer (Lencho) whose crops are destroyed in a hailstorm. Facing a year in which his wife and children will go hungry, Lencho decides to write to the only one he knows of that is sure to help them: God. He posts the letter, and his faith is such that he is not at all surprised when he gets a letter in reply containing money. In the humorous denouement, Lencho’s faith in God is vindicated, but not so his faith in the post office. Themes: faith, unpredictability, kindness, misunderstanding, ingratitude.

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A Woman on the Roof

A Woman on the Roof: Short story by Doris LessingIn this story by Doris Lessing, three construction workers repairing the roof of an apartment building become obsessed by a woman who sunbathes in a bikini on a nearby rooftop. The three make demeaning catcalls and become increasingly frustrated as the woman constantly ignores them. Two are enraged by her indifference while the third, seventeen and inexperienced, develops romantic fantasies about the woman. When the younger one decides to “make her acquaintance” and learns that his feelings are not reciprocated, his passion morphs into hatred. Themes include lust, objectification of women, sexual harassment, gender roles, social class, group dynamics.

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