American short stories

T. Coraghessan Boyle’s short story, “Greasy Lake,” is a work of fiction that is meant to display the absurdities of the American teenage experience. Published in 1985, Boyle is quick to contextualize the work within an 80s teenager’s frame of reference; he opens the story with a lyric from a Bruce Springsteen song, “Sprit of the Night,” which acts as Boyle’s first symbol in the story, a tribute to the teenagers of the decade in which the story is published. But, from the content, it can be…

The Lottery vs. American Civil War: Civilization vs. Savagery I. Introduction: The Lottery and American Civil War “Although the Villagers had forgotten the ritual and lost the original black box, they still remembered to use stones” (Jackson). Mr. Summers is ready to set the black box down and places slips of paper in the slot found in the middle top part of the box. The winning prize is stoning. It shows that there are connections and similarities…

person who wins it The inventor of the lottery: Shirley Hardie Jackson (December 14, 1916 – August 8, 1965) was an American author. She was a popular writer in her time, and her work has received increased attention from literary critics in recent years. She influenced Neil Gaiman, Stephen King, Nigel Kneale, and Richard Matheson.[1] She is best known for the short story "The Lottery" (1948), which reveals a secret, sinister underside to a bucolic America village, and for The Haunting…

In Travelling Light, a series of short stories written by Peter Behrens, vehicles are not only props: they all have an have an underlying symbolic significance that greatly contributes to the cohesion an understanding of the works. First and foremost, the planes in Voodoo Starfighters can be seen constant as underlying fear to the families whose fathers work at the military camp. As these vehicles are bombers (p.36), we understand that the power they represent is intertwined with the fear that…

Kate Chopin was the most adventurous of the 20th -century American woman writers. Her stories reflected her ideas about how women were sacrificing their lives (marriage, motherhood) at that time. Chopin had a vision of freedom, andemancipation, and that is reflected in her poems; most of her stories sent messages to the audience about how females could be robust and are capable of being equal to men. She reflects in the histories the ideas of autonomy during of that century, and for this…

is a short story by American author Ambrose Bierce set during the Civil War, and is famous for its irregular time sequence and twist ending. It features one main character named Peyton Farquhar, “a well-to-do planter, of an old and highly respected Alabama family” (Bierce 2.1), and the events leading up to his death. The author illustrates this character in various ways to show that he is an imperious, foolish, yet devoted man. A characteristic of Peyton Farquhar that is evident in this short…

The use of Spanish elements in “This is How You Lose Her” “This is How You Lose Her” is a story written by Junot Diaz and unlike other literally works themed around immigration this particular story paints the image of a disjointed atmosphere which is created by the use of a voice-driven plot. The book is a collection of many stories which are not connected though they are all narrated the same person whose name is Yunior. Yunior has been the narrator in several other books written by Junot Diaz…

two selective stories such as, When Mr. Pirzada Came to Dine and The Third and Final Continent in the short story collection “Interpreter of Maladies” by award winning Indian American author Jhumpa Lahiri. The paper begins with a brief introduction about diaspora, Jhumpa Lahiri and the book “Interpreter of Maladies” (published in 1999). The introduction is preceded by defining the two stories such as When Mr. Pirzada Came to Dine and The Third and Final Continent as the short stories of major…

Vladimir Vladimirovich Nabokov, born in St. Petersburg, Russia on 22 April 1899, was a Russian-American novelist who was also known by the pen name Vladimir Sirin. Nabokov originally began writing in Russian and wrote his first nine novels in Russian. However, Nabokov achieved international prominence after he started writing in English. Vladimir's finest novel Lolita is also considered his most controversial work because of the criticism it received due to its deep and warped erotic theme.…

Continent” is a short story that follows an unnamed narrator travelling and growing accustom to America for a work position. The author, Jhumpa Lahiri, uses the eyes of the narrator to tell the story of his journey. When in America, the narrator attempts to leave his Bengali culture behind to become American. He sees his culture as an inconvenience. The narrator tells his story but does not go into any detail when discussing his personal life. He only talks about her more later on in the story.…