Ethical Short Story In O. Henry Prize Stories

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What are ethics? According to Grand Valley’s student guide to a framework for thinking ethically it simply states, ethics refers to standards of behavior that tell us how human beings ought to act in the many situations in which they find themselves-as friends, parents, children, citizens, businesspeople, teachers, professionals, and so on. Knowing what ethics is all about will help to answer that one burning question of which short story in O. Henry Prize Stories, 2014 had the most impact of left the strongest impression on you this term. When I first saw this question I wasn’t sure what I wanted to say. I really had to think hard about this question and what it was asking in order to even know what to say. The more I thought the more a few stories in particular kept popping up in my head. The stories I couldn’t stop thinking about were “The Gun” by Mark Haddon, “Good Faith” by Colleen Morrissey, “Trust” by Dylan Landis and “Nero” by Louise Erdrich. Each one of these stories brings up ethical issues on their own but the one that I …show more content…
It tells the story of a religious family travelling the south who meet two rich young men on the road. That night the leading character Rachel does snake handling, not for entertainment, as she tells the more serious young man, Mr. Pattinson, but as part of her faith and religious practice. After she pulls the rattler out of its box, the young man’s stares unnerve Rachel enough that she feels fear--something strange to her snake handling. For a moment she stops convinced that she will be bitten, but then she overcomes this challenge to her faith and falls deeply into the experience, so much so, that the Spirit takes her to another place. She is later bitten and her father confines her to their trailer home but that doesn’t stop Rachel. Rachel finds herself speaking often with Mr.

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