Essays on Short Story

Everyone has dreams and desires, but sometimes these can make it hard to think of someone besides one’s self. In the story “Raymond’s Run,” Squeaky is a determined and confident girl who is in the process of refining her value and personality. At the beginning...

When she pushed the big gates open, the touch of the iron bars were as cold as ice. She could feel the bumpiness of the old cobbled path beneath her, they were smooth unlike the crunching of the odd dead leaf that she stepped on....

Guns, Germs, and Steel sets out to tell the history for the last 13,000 years. It also aims to explain why some societies were much more successful than others. Some of this success can be given to population growth, immunity to germs, and animal domestication....

James Joyce wrote two versions of his short story “The Sisters,” the first one under the pen name of Stephen Daedalus. Both versions tell the story of a boy and a priest, Father Flynn. The latter dies, and the people around him react to the...

In this amazing short story, “The Ones Who Walk Away from Omelas”, by Ursula Le Guin. It is all about a society, that has a perfect image of itself and its people. However, there is a dark and twisted secret, a child that sacrifices its...

Individuals in the public eye endeavor to discover bliss in one’s self, others and their locale. What factors are there to get extreme satisfaction in one’s life? What moral choices does one need to defeat to acquire this incomparable satisfaction that each individual undertakings? The...

I really did not know what to write about, but I was reminded this morning as I stopped to fuel the car up, of one of my most embarrassing moments since I moved back “home”. It was an early morning and I was off to...

In Our Town, Thornton Wilder develops the idea of appreciating life because what’s taken for granted will eventually be taken away then you ended up missing what you least appreciated. The play takes us to a small town and we see how simple life is,...

A woman is a human being too. She deserves to be able to make her own decisions and to express herself freely. A woman should be able to live in society without being oppressed into submission by rules or by men. “The Yellow Wallpaper” by...

The faint sound of people talking, to the calmness and ghostly silence, was suddenly disrupted by a thundering sound. Out of nowhere a bullet soared in front of me, I crashed into shelves of cans causing chaos all throughout the grocery store. People were running...

The story of “Theft” written by Katherine Anne Porter takes place in New York City during the 1920’s. This unnamed female protagonist discovers that her purse, made of gold cloth, is missing. As the mid 20 year old woman ponders, she realizes she had her...

Annie John is a story of a life of a young girl and her relationship with her mother. The story starts out with Annie being ten years old and has a very close bond with her mother. During the summer months her mother lets her...

Raymond Carver’s short story, A Small Good Thing, and Ray Lawrence’s film, Jindabyne, miscellaneously explore the idea that individuals can experience isolation. Carver delineates a tale about two parents struggling with their son’s brain injury after a hit and run accident and the incessant phone...

The short story ‘’Rock‘’, written by Lindiwe Nkutha is about Zibusiso, a girl that lives and grows up in poverty. Zibusiso stays in a shack in Soweto with her family. Zibusiso is called ‘’ rock “by the kids in the neighbourhood, because she is in...

The Other Woman, by Virgilio Samonte, is a short story that set out a fray-like relationship between spouse and mistresses. The Other Woman is written in narrative form, where the author used excessive aesthetic words to define the situations, emotions, and the settings effectively, which...

A Deeper Look at “Two Friends” by Guy de Maupassant A famous short story, “Two Friends,” was translated by Gordon R. Silber. This story took place during the Franco-Prussian War that began in 1870. This war was a conflict between France and Germany. As Maupassant’s...

The short story, “The ones who walk away from Omelas”, written by Ursula Le Guin, is about a supposed perfect society where the sacrifice of a boy is what provides the harmony, the equality and the prosperity to the citizens of this city. As a...

“The Passing of Grandison” is told in the third person and primarily limited to the consciousness of Dick Owens, the cynical and lazy young heir to a large plantation in Kentucky. His desire to win the hand of his lover Charity Lomax leads him on...

“Good night,” the other said. Turning off the electric light he continued the conversation with himself. It was the light of course but it is necessary that the place be clean and pleasant. You do not want music. Certainly, you do not want music. Nor...