Short stories are a form of fictional prose that typically focuses on a single character or a small group of characters. They are known for their brevity and ability to convey a powerful message in a short amount of time. Short stories often explore complex themes ...Read More
Brief Description of Short Story
Short stories are a form of fictional prose that typically focuses on a single character or a small group of characters. They are known for their brevity and ability to convey a powerful message in a short amount of time. Short stories often explore complex themes and emotions, making them a valuable literary form for both writers and readers.
Importance of Writing Essays on This Topic
Writing essays about short stories allows students and writers to closely analyze the elements of storytelling, character development, and thematic exploration. It helps to develop critical thinking and analytical skills, as well as the ability to express ideas and interpretations effectively. Additionally, exploring short stories through essays can deepen one's understanding of human experiences and societal issues.
Tips on Choosing a Good Topic
- Consider the themes: Choose a topic that explores a specific theme or idea presented in the short story.
- Character analysis: Focus on the analysis of a particular character's development, motives, or conflicts within the short story.
- Narrative techniques: Explore the narrative structure, point of view, or symbolism used in the short story to craft an engaging topic.
Essay Topics
1. Argumentative
Essay Topics
- The impact of symbolism in "The Lottery" by Shirley Jackson.
- Exploring moral dilemmas in "The Tell-Tale Heart" by Edgar Allan Poe.
2. Reflective
Essay Topics
- How "The Yellow Wallpaper" by Charlotte Perkins Gilman portrays mental illness.
- The use of irony and satire in "A Good Man is Hard to Find" by Flannery O'Connor.
3. Comparative
Essay Topics
- Contrasting the themes of love and loss in "The Gift of the Magi" by O. Henry and "The Necklace" by Guy de Maupassant.
- Comparing the use of setting and atmosphere in "Hills Like White Elephants" by Ernest Hemingway and "The Storm" by Kate Chopin.
Concluding Thought
Exploring short stories through essay writing offers a unique opportunity to delve into the complexities of human experiences, societal issues, and the art of storytelling. By choosing engaging topics and critically analyzing the elements of short stories, writers and students can gain a deeper appreciation for the power of this literary form.
The two shorts stories, “Everything that rises must converge” by Flannery O'Connor and “Babylon revisited’ by F. Scott Fitzgerald both integrate the element of fiction and history to portray the various themes and messages in the story. Fiction means things that are not factual or...
Societal dictum and etiquette are fluid concepts, changing and differing dependent largely on location, culture, time period, and other factors. With reference to carting a carriage of Peaches through rural Japan in the middle of a cold winter night, the narrator of Abe Akira’s Peaches...
James Joyce’s A Mother is a short story based around the life of Mrs. Kearney, a strong-willed woman whose breach of convention results in the destruction of her acclaimed reputation. Joyce’s linguistic use of naturalism, modernism, and feminism, exemplifies the “paralysis”[1] of Dublin’s rigid societal...
What attributes qualify someone, or something, as a monster? Despite the fact that the answer to this subjective query fluctuates immensely among individual persons, for centuries we have attempted to construct a universal definition of the word ‘monster’. The Oxford English Dictionary (1884) illustrates man’s...
During the Modern period, writers were concerned with “making it new.” People had been disillusioned, largely due to the devastation of the First World War, and they were fed up with the hypocrisy of Victorian society. People’s way of looking at themselves and society had...
In the short story, “Roman Fever,” Edith Wharton portrays a daily life situation between two wealthy middle-aged women talking in Rome. The morals and struggle of upper-class women to succeed and stand out at that time period are revealed in the story. This story fits...
In D.H. Lawrence’s ‘The Man who Loved Islands’, the plot is used as a vehicle for an allegory about different ideals in life – ‘community, marriage and independence’ (Franks 121), as represented by the three islands. Through the use of an allegory, Lawrence delivers a...
The tell-tale heart begins on the eighth night as he was peering in at midnight, and perhaps the old man heard it because he startled awake. He wonders if anyone was there. After waiting a long while, he decided to open the lantern and a...
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 story begins, the city in on the verge of surrender....
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...
As readers, we have this assumption that a story has to end a certain way in order for us to truly understand what happens. However, this shouldn’t be the case. The reason is that while we read we are focused on what’s going on in...
In James Baldwin’s “Sonny’s Blues,” the narrative unfolds against the backdrop of Harlem during the early years of the civil rights movement. The story intricately weaves together the lives of two brothers, each grappling with their own struggles within the confines of the urban landscape....
Written by Herman Melville, Bartleby, The Scrivener, is a short story that tells the tale of a fortunate lawyer on Wall Street who hires a scrivener named Bartleby to serve for his law firm. In the beginning, he is an excellent copyist but as the...
One of the more impactful means by which the experience of war is recreated for a civilian audience is through the illustration of the human body, with lived experience and relevant literature illustrating war as an entity so powerful that it physically brands trauma onto...
Over the course of several centuries, grotesque imagery has played a vital role in the arts, literature, and cultures all over the world. Attempting to attribute a clear-cut definition to the word grotesque has proven to be a challenge for historians and literary scholars since...
Jesus’ Son by Denis Johnson and Identity and Intercultural Communication by Judith Martin and Thomas Nakayama are both concerned with identity and the effect it can have on the way someone’s life turns out. While Jesus’ Son is a book of short stories about a...
In the 1905 short story “Paul’s Case”, author Willa Cather leaves the reader to wonder what exactly Paul’s “case” is. Throughout the story, there seems to be clues left behind by Cather as to what Paul’s obstacles are. Some of Cather’s indications of what Paul...
The long, antepenultimate paragraph of “The Portrait of Mr. W.H.” neatly interrupts the dialogue that has just revealed the true nature of the death of Erskine, a friend of the narrator. The narrator is taking in the shocking news that Erskine had died naturally of...
“Bien Pretty,” as the title implies, is a story that invests in appearance. Throughout the story, prettiness is used as a proxy for authenticity and confidence in one’s identity, while ugliness is a stand-in for performed identity. Flavio’s appearance initially attracts Lupe because he physically...
Irishtown lies a short distance outside the medieval city walls of Dublin. Dublin was originally a Viking city and after 1171, when an Anglo-Norman army took it, Dublin became the centre of English rule in Ireland. The native Gaelic Irish were therefore viewed as an...
Long ago, before humans ever existed, there was a small little spec. That spec was a kingdom. There were a pair of twins that was born. Each of the twins trained and prepared to be the king. There was one problem: there were two princes...
Thomas King’s short story “Totem” is a symbolic attack on Canadian colonization and the struggles faced by the Aboriginal people. He has used symbols to narrate the story,” Totem poles” as a symbol to describe the Aboriginal community of Southern Alberta, “Museum” as land, “Director...
Honoreer Fanonne Jeffers’s 2000 story “Sister Lilith” it is a story about female character who was created from the mud together with her husband Adam, then they were blessed with little son known as Cain. According to the text Lilith describes their “Skin darker than...
Centuries dissever two of the most entangle record to hominine company. Where are you going, where have you Been by Carol Oates and Nathaniel Hawthorne’s Young Goodman Brown might seem dissimilar in stem and blue alignment? However, an detailed analysis of the statement prove alike...
According to Friedrich Nietzsche, “‘free spirits’…do not exist, did not exist” but “could one day exist” (18). Mr. James Duffy, the protagonist of James Joyce’s “A Painful Case” in Dubliners, has characteristics similar to that of Nietzsche’s theoretical overman. Nevertheless, although Duffy appears to live...
Flannery O’Connor’s short story “The River” tells the unfortunate story of a young boy named Harry who finds himself searching for meaning in his life. Due to the neglectfulness of his parents, he is left to figure out his own morals and beliefs on his...
In The Crying of Lot 49, Thomas Pynchon expresses a very interesting view of entropy through the actions of Oedipa Maas. In communication theory, entropy is a measure of the efficiency of a system, as a code or language, in transmitting information. Otherwise, the definition...
Edgar Allan Poe’s ‘Ligeia’ is one of the most simultaneously celebrated and contested of all his works. In scholarship, there is debate over many facets of the tale, including the sanity and reliability of the narrator, the cause of Rowena’s death, the truth behind Ligeia’s...
William Dean Howells’ short story “Editha,” published in 1905, revolves around ideals about war and the romanticized vision of it. Through each character, Howells presents a contrasting view of war. Editha, and her view of God-intended glorious war, is able to push her fiancé George...
Ceremony/Rabbit Proof Fence Rabbit Proof Fence and Ceremony are both stories about native identity, the former in Australia and the latter in America. They both have to do with half natives and declining splendor of native populations. Rabbit Proof Fence being about the people of...
