Featured Stories

The Queen of Spades

The Queen of Spades: Short story by Alexander PushkinThis entertaining, quite witty story from Alexander Pushkin shows how greed can overcome our better judgement when presented with a seemingly easy way to make money. A young soldier spends hours watching his fellow officers gamble at cards. He never joins in because he can’t afford to risk his small savings. When he learns that an old socialite knows a secret strategy that always wins at faro, he devises a heartless plan to learn it. He begins to gamble using her information, winning and doubling the bet each time. Unfortunately for him, the old socialite has the last laugh.

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Inem

Inem: Short story by Pramoedya Ananta ToerThis story by Pramoedya Ananta Toer is set in 1930s Java. A six-year-old boy’s best friend, an eight-year-old girl, is married off to a seventeen-year-old-man. The naïve girl, who has no idea what marriage entails, is excited only because of the new clothes and make-up she will wear at the ceremony. Her family are neighbors, and for months afterward the boy is kept awake by her screams at night. A year later she is divorced, a tainted “woman” facing a miserable future. Themes include cultural tradition, innocence, friendship, child marriage, brutality, patriarchy, shame, compassion vs. social correctness.

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The Higgler

The Higgler: Short story by A. E. CoppardIn this story by A. E. Coppard, a higgler (peddler) faces a difficult choice. Although not formally engaged, he has been “keeping company” with a girl everyone expects him to marry. Life gets complicated when one of his suppliers, a wealthy widow in poor health, asks him to marry her beautiful, well-educated daughter. Though strongly attracted to the girl, she has shown little interest in him. He makes his decision thinking the mother’s offer must have a hidden catch. When she dies, he learns something that may have changed his mind. Themes include struggle, choices and consequences, suspicion, unconsummated love.

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The Fifty-first Dragon

The Fifty-first Dragon: Short story by Heywood BrounThis major themes of this humorous take on the dragon-slayer genre by Heywood Broun are courage and belief in one’s ability. When Gawaine fails almost everything else at “Knight School”, the headmaster decides to make him a dragon slayer. Unfortunately, Gawaine lacks self-confidence and insists on receiving a magical invisibility spell before starting the job. Some reviewers see the story as an allegory of America’s elite College Preparatory Schools. Written in 1919, others see it as a satire of the propaganda slogans used to lure naïve young men to the trenches during World War 1. Other themes: paternalism, deception, vanity.

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The Pedestrian

The Pedestrian: Short story by Ray BradburyThis is our second Ray Bradbury story that questions the social effects of television (the first being The Veldt). Set in 2053, almost everyone stays indoors all night watching TV. Leonard Mead doesn’t. He enjoys going out for a long walk every evening. This is so unusual that the only police car patrolling the empty streets arrests him for his “regressive tendencies”. Fortunately, Bradbury’s predictions about TV were wrong. However, something far more dangerous may be replacing it: social networking on mobile devices! Themes include social dysfunction, dehumanization through technology, conformity vs. individualism, surveillance and control, isolation, disconnection from nature.

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The Bride Comes to Yellow Sky

The Bride Comes to Yellow Sky: Short story by Stephen CraneThe major theme of this story from Stephen Crane is the taming of America’s ‘Wild West’. The instrument of change is the railroad, which brings ‘Eastern’ ways to previously isolated communities like Yellow Sky. The town’s Marshall, who returns from a city visit with a new wife, symbolizes the transition. As the couple approach their new home, where things will certainly be different for the Marshall, they are confronted by the town drunk spoiling for a fight. When the ‘showdown’ doesn’t go as the drunkard expects, he realizes the old days are gone forever. Other themes: community, marriage, fear, violence.

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Gloria’s Saturday

Gloria's Saturday: Short story by Mario BenedettiThe message of this tragic love story by Mario Benedetti is to treasure the time you have with your loved ones because life can be cut short at any time. The story is told in the form of a narrative written by a husband sitting in an all-night vigil at the bedside of his critically ill wife. Intending to share it with her when she survives, he expresses regret over how they allowed their busy lifestyles to hinder their ability to spend quality time together. Themes include fear, love, mortality, work-life balance, grief, regret.

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The Scholarship Jacket

The Scholarship Jacket: Short story by Marta SalinasThis story by Marta Salinas is about prejudice, privilege and hope. Martha is 14 and about to enter High-School. Her parents are very poor, so she lives with her grandparents. Marta gets top grades, and wants nothing more than for this to be recognized by winning the Grade 8 Scholarship Jacket. She is devastated when she hears two teachers arguing about whether the jacket should go instead to a lesser student whose father is on the School Board. When Martha explains the problem to her grandfather, his answer proves that you don’t need a formal education to acquire great wisdom.

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