George Saunders

Tenth of December (2013) by George Saunders is a collection of short stories that appeared in numerous periodicals between 1995 and 2009. The New York Times named the collection one of the top ten books of 2013. It also was awarded the 2013 Story Prize for short story collections and the first Folio Prize in 2014. The stories in the book focus on the human condition and finding significance in the smaller things in life—in spite of utilizing settings such as a prison lab in the future and an…

wanting to know what happens next. Short stories do not drag on endlessly and give the message of the story in few words, making them the perfect tool for struggling readers to invest more time in reading. A two paragraph short story, “Sticks” by George Saunders captures the reader’s attention and holds it for the duration of the story, which takes no longer than 5 minutes to complete. This narration can help any readers having a hard time staying focused on a long and descriptive story realize…

Since its publication, some decades, George Saunders’s collection of short stories has remained relevant despite the passing years and times. As a result, it has formed a backbone of inspiration to an entire generation along the way. Civilwarland in Bad Decline is about a group of characters who have unforgettable traits which bring out the best in each of them as they struggle to survive in a world that is full of drama and tragic unexpected events. For example, the gangs. The story states:…

The essay titled “The Braindead Megaphone” by George Saunders is an essay about the influence the media has come to have over the world as we know it. The author begins by trying to get the reader to imagine themselves at a party where one of the guests is speaking into a megaphone and the volume is very loud to the point that it begins to drown out the thoughts of the other guests. The author then asks us, the reader, to then imagine the same guest speaking over the megaphone, but this time…

In Jon by George Saunders, the omnipresent corporate establishment forces an identity upon the characters, causing tension between their true and artificial selves. The protagonist Jon exists in a commercial community that uses teenagers as test dummies for its brands. Their world is prefabricated and they are taught via commercials for different trademarks, with slogans as their source of knowledge. The very militant and impersonal nature of the society throws the reader off balance, yet the…

George Saunders’ “Puppy” and Toni Morrison’s “Recitatif” tell of two different stories with different characters in presumably different time periods. Both authors have drastically different backgrounds that bring them to these tales. However, their works of literature are more comparable than one would initially think. From the perspective of the reader, the intent of Puppy was to stress that there is often more to something than meets the eye and that because of this, we tend to want for…

Ideas of Perfect Often, we find our assumptions of people flawed, and our ideas of others are riddles with perceptions we have created without knowing the background of who we’ve placed judgment on. That’s exactly the conflict portrayed in George Saunders short story “Puppy”. Callie and Marie are the protagonists of the story that drive the plot. Callie is a married mom of three kids struggling to get by. Bo, Callie’s son, has undisclosed problems that make him act out which resulted in Callie…

Semplica Girls; a Social Commentary George Saunders story, The Semplica-Girl Diaries, follows a father as he documents a month of his life in a journal. When following the man’s fictional life, one sees how Saunders displays how human beings are products of their environments. Saunders makes this commentary through his fictional cultures’ use of Semplica Girls. The protagonist and his family exhibit how people accept things as customary as long as the majority of people accept it, even if it may…

As author George Saunders said in “Thank You, Esther Forbes” on page 62, “By honing the sentences you used to describe the world, you changed the inflection of your mind, which changed your perceptions.” In this simple, yet elegant sentence I would elaborate its meaning as, The more vocabulary you have at your disposal the more vividly you can describe the world around you. Let me give you an example; If you and a 5th grader see an apple on a chair, the one with the more broad vocabulary would…

Louise Erdrich’s “The Flower” and George Saunders’ the “Tenth of December” are two of the most acclaimed short stories of the early 21st century. Both stories narrate a unique tale while examining a topic that has fascinated all of humanity throughout time: death. In the “Tenth of December,” Don Eber, a protagonist of the story, faces death in two forms: his stepfather’s passing and his personal pursuit of death. Likewise, Mink’s daughter and Wolfred in “The Flower” confront death with the…