American short stories

Irving’s story “Rip Van Winkle” uses common literary characteristics to bring to life a new version of a mythology for America. Some of the characteristics he uses are a time setting of the past; a positive message about the people it is written for and about; and magical, mysterious, and incredible events. All of these characteristics help convey a mood and theme that allows the reader to envision how the US changed dramatically over a short period of time. At the very beginning of the story,…

an English teacher, I am always intrigued by students’ stories of how they came to reading and writing, the beginnings of their path to literacy and their connection (or disconnection) from the educational system which they must navigate. No one student’s path is the same as any other’s; reading the diversity of their experiences of success and defeat, struggle and triumph, never gets old for me, and I find that knowing their literacy stories helps me understand better how to teach them and help…

which he passionately, eagerly explored his mind. Bradbury did not attend college, but instead learned about writing through observation (Bradbury, “Ray Bradbury”). He considered himself a “child of the library,” and was influenced by a range of stories he discovered there, from fairytales and children’s books to works of authors such as William Shakespeare, Edgar Allan Poe and Dylan Thomas (Weller 41). Exposure to a variety…

They Carried, by Tim O’Brien explores the experiences of a platoon from the Vietnam war in a series of short stories. The stories go deeper than the events of the war, they show the moral dilemmas soldiers face everyday in the battlefield. Tim O’Brien served in the Vietnam war, but these stories are not based off of his experience, although it plays a role in his storytelling. Most of the short stories are written in first person from the perspective of Tim O’Brien, a fictional character not…

provocatively deploying symbols in their works. To this end, twentieth-century American writers Shirley Jackson, Flannery O’Connor, and John Updike are among this upper echelon of writers who have consistently demonstrated a mastery of symbolism throughout their respective short stories. For example, in Jackson’s short story “The Lottery,” she engages masterfully with the symbol of the “stone;” in O’Connor’s…

(BrainyQuotes.com) What Mr. Berger means by that Often culture is stored in stories such as in the short story “My Favorite Chaperone” by Jean Okimoto, and The Chocolate Wars by Robert Cormier and stories that also explore what happens to Culture when it attempts perfection and fails such as “The Giver” by Lois Lowry.”My Favorite Chaperone explores how cultural differences create conflict in families. “The Chocolate War”is a story about how school settings also have a culture that influences how…

Indians to America is an important theme throughout each story. For example in the story Mr. Pirzada comes to dine, Lilia one of the main characters has parents who reflect back on their own experiences in India. Lilia is a American who would like to learn about the culture of India since her parents grew up there along with Mr. Pirzada. She is more concerned with Mr. Pirzada because he has certain customs when it comes to the purely American holiday, Halloween. Lilia is surprised to know that…

Communication is key to having a healthy relationship. In the short stories, “The Yellow Wallpaper” by Charlotte Perkins Gilman and “Hills Like White Elephants” by Ernest Hemingway, both relationships are in conflict. In “Hills Like White Elephants”, Jig is having second thoughts about going to Madrid to have an “awfully simple operation (Pg. 2)” and the American is trying to do everything in his power to continue with the operation. In “The Yellow Wallpaper”, the narrator is diagnosed with…

In the 20th century, feminist literature was introduced by very few women. Among the writers, was Kate Chopin. She was a novelist and short stories writer. Kate Chopin has been known for her ironic short stories; one, for example, is “Desiree’s Baby.” (1892) “Desiree’s Baby” is set before the Civil War and focuses on a racial crisis between the main characters, Desiree, and her husband, Armand Aubigny, as they took notice that their son seemed to be of mixed race. A dispute broke out between…

more as the protagonist and the girl he is having a conversation with is seen as the antagonist. The diction in this short story gives away the motivations of the man versus the girl. Figurative language and diction gives away the topic of the conversation that they want to keep quiet which is abortion. The man in the story is an American man and from other details in the story you can gather that he is well traveled and mature. His motivation is to persuade the girl to get an abortion so that…