Questions tagged [short-stories]
For questions about stories with a fully developed plot, themes, and characters, but significantly shorter and less detailed than a novel.
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In Penelope Fitzgerald’s short story The Prescription, significance of “Knowledge is good, but what is the use of knowledge without honesty?”
In Penelope Fitzgerald’s short story The Prescription (1982), Dr. Mehmet Bey almost kills his 14-year-old apprentice, Alecco, by forcing him to drink a poisoned prescription after discovering the boy ...
4
votes
1answer
127 views
How is Kimberly Clark a ghost in Janssen's “A Recurring Dream”?
In the short story "A Recurring Dream" (from Unusual Stories from Many Lands by Arlo T. Janssen), a character called Kimberly Clark is accused of being a ghost by an old man.
The man opens the door ...
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0answers
18 views
What does “wisdom that is so often loudly preached” mean in the Parable of the King and the Maiden?
In the first paragraph of "The Parable of the King and the Maiden":
Suppose there was a king who loved a humble maiden and whose heart was unaffected by the wisdom that is so often loudly preached.
...
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0answers
37 views
How does the author convey the tone of the panic that can be aroused by contemplating the “prenatal abyss”?
In the text of Vladimir Nabokov: The Beginning of Consciousness
How does the author convey the tone of the panic that can be aroused by contemplating the "prenatal abyss"?
The cradle rocks above ...
6
votes
0answers
84 views
Short story, maybe SF: non-neurotypical girl gets pregnant and older mentor (not the father) marries her
In this story there's a girl who is mentally fragile in some way -- I don't remember exactly how, and I don't think it's spelled out explicitly, but there's something about her that isn't entirely ...
1
vote
1answer
105 views
What is the meaning of this sentence from “Polaris” by Lovecraft?
Below is a sentence from Lovecraft's "Polaris":
I said to myself, "This is no dream, for by what means can I prove the greater reality of that other life in the house of stone and brick south of ...
2
votes
1answer
60 views
Short sci-fi story called “Blood and Lust”
Many years ago I read a short story that I think was titled "Blood and Lust". It featured two entities named Blood and Lust who would travel through history making very small adjustments to see how ...
3
votes
1answer
122 views
Anthology: one story about an astronaut falling on flowers, another about a wife trying to kill her husband
I am trying to remember the name of a book with short stories inside. I remember 2 stories from it:
There was an astronaut on a foreign planet with flowers all around called floofs or phoofs, I ...
5
votes
1answer
50 views
What kind of “portable telephone” does H. P. Lovecraft write about in his letter to August Derleth?
The letter is called "Letter to August Derleth". He describes a frightful dream he had to Derleth. In this dream, he and his friend Loveman go to a old cemetery to investigate a sepulchre and Loveman ...
4
votes
1answer
76 views
Looking for a shoujo/romance one-shot manga
I am looking for a short manga or a one-shot (not really sure) about the main guy who bumps into a girl on his way to school and the girl drops her hair pin which she got from her crush (childhood ...
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0answers
42 views
Question about a personal interpretation of Mckee's basic elements of Story: events and beats
I would like to propose a "technical/practical" interpretation of Mckee's basic story elements.
My interpretation is some sort of a set theoretical motivated, on which the construction of the next ...
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0answers
16 views
In Going Places by A.R. Barton, does Sophie really meet Danny Casey?
In the story Going Places by A.R. Barton, the plot revolves around the story of a schoolgirl Sophie, who fantasizes over many things, but no one ever believes her.
Can someone please confirm whether ...
0
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0answers
71 views
Which of the following statements best describes the relationship between Ulrich and Georg?
This question comes from the story "The Interlopers" by Saki.
Due to their families’ longtime feud, they both consider each other enemies and trespassers.
They were once friends, but after inheriting ...
3
votes
1answer
55 views
Where did the Grimm brothers' story “The Shepherd Boy” originate?
"The Shepherd Boy" is a very short story by the Brothers Grimm which recently found fame in the world of popular sci-fi by being referenced prominently in an episode of Doctor Who. In general it is ...
7
votes
1answer
97 views
What is the significance of “half past two” in Wolfgang Borchert's The Clock and The Bread?
In both The Clock and The Bread by Wolfgang Borchert there is a mention of the events happening at "half past two" in the morning. I have been unable to find a historical event of World War Two that ...
7
votes
1answer
339 views
A short story on two brothers meeting one a criminal one policeman
I read this around 15 years ago in English as a Second Language class in a summer class I was attending in Poughkeepsie.
We were reading short stories from a book (a collection of short stories by ...
0
votes
1answer
110 views
How are old horror short stories classified?
When I was young, I had a few books with compiled horror, mystery or macabre short stories. I want to go back and read some of these short stories, and was able to find a few.
I was able to find many ...
5
votes
1answer
88 views
Restaurant serves everything with money back guarantee, patron defeats them by ordering a Twinkie
I'd like to find a short short story, probably only one page long. I've read it on the internet in English less than two years ago, probably around 2018-08-04 when I was binging short short stories.
...
4
votes
1answer
44 views
Radical Canadians and Radio Broadcasts
Long ago, I was told to study a part of a short story. It was about a group of radical Canadians, and radio broadcasts. I want to ID that story, so I can find and study it again. It had a ...
1
vote
1answer
90 views
Is “The Most Dangerous Game” Literature?
Way back in high school, many many years ago, our teacher described to us what made something literature or not. This lesson always stuck with me for two reasons: 1) I didn't really think it was ...
4
votes
1answer
102 views
What inspired E. M. Forster's short story 'The Machine Stops'?
E. M. Forster's short story 'The Machine Stops' was published in the 1909 edition of the Oxford & Cambridge Review and was prescient in terms of thinking about the downsides of the Internet - well ...
6
votes
1answer
74 views
Looking for a short story about painters who fake a death
I'm trying to find a short story about two painters. They realize that nobody ever becomes famous or earns any money from their work until after they die. So they decide to fake one of them being ...
0
votes
2answers
243 views
Short Story Identification - From English Textbook, about Person Living in Wrong Time Period
When I was a Junior in High School (2007-2008) my English teacher used an English textbook that had a story about someone who thought they were living in the wrong time period. I cannot remember ...
2
votes
1answer
47 views
What is the meaning of this sentence: …for there was nearly half as much of the entertaining as of the contemptible about the man
It is a line of one of Edgar Allan Poe's short stories, and it says:
We gave him a hearty welcome; for there was nearly half as much of the
entertaining as of the contemptible about the man...
I ...
2
votes
0answers
24 views
What are Trubies?
Nalo Hopkinson's short story "Ours is the Prettiest" (published in the collection Falling in Love with Hominids, 2015) mentions Trubies several times, for example:
Page 190:
I swung aside the ...
2
votes
1answer
35 views
Relevance of tiger limerick to Gilla's story
In the short story "The Smile on the Face" by Nalo Hopkinson (published in the collection Falling in Love with Hominids, 2015), the author intersperses the story with fragments and lines from the ...
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vote
0answers
47 views
Story about a precious bottle of wine; owner waiting for the perfect occasion
A wonderful story about a man who owns a bottle of luxury wine and waiting for an important occasion to open the bottle, at the end the bottle is lost and drank by a homeless man does who not know its ...
1
vote
1answer
57 views
What were the “Leicestershire clowns”?
In Sir Walter Scott's "Chronicles of the Canongate" we have the following
"indigestion, from having swallowed victuals like a Lei'stershire clown bolting bacon"
I have not traced any other ...
24
votes
1answer
5k views
English short story where a wife makes an investigation officer eat the murder weapon
I remember reading this English short story during my school days; it was part of our English curriculum 18-19 years ago.
Plot:
It starts with a wife killing her husband with turkey or chicken or ...
4
votes
0answers
26 views
Why does Uri get a special answer when his balloon pops?
In Miriam Roth's classic Hebrew children's book A Tale of Five Balloons (Hebrew: מעשה בחמישה בלונים), five children each get a balloon:
In sequence, each child sees their balloon pop. And each is ...
1
vote
1answer
90 views
Chekhov story involving a “peeping tom” priest and a newly married couple?
The story takes place on a ship and involves the priest spying on the newlyweds couple in their cabin.
Can't remember the title though. (It was re-published in one of his short story collections in ...
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vote
0answers
25 views
Does “The Whalebone Parrot” draw inspiration from any specific Apache sources?
"The Whalebone Parrot" is a short horror story by Darcie Little Badger. In it, a parrot is killed, and then possesses Loretta to try to kill the cat that killed the parrot.
Darcie Little Badger often ...
3
votes
0answers
35 views
How is the possession by “The Whalebone Parrot” related to Loretta's Native American identity?
Darcie Little Badger's short story "The Whalebone Parrot" tells the story of young Emily in the 19th century struggling with her sister Loretta's possession by what turns out to be the eponymous ...
1
vote
1answer
55 views
What is the language which appears in “The Whalebone Parrot”?
"The Whalebone Parrot" by Darcie Little Badger is a short story freely available online about a family living on a small island with a cat and a parrot. An important theme is that both sisters are "...
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0answers
34 views
The Merchant of Venice
İs there any short version of the merchant of Venice to play?
We are going to play it in our class but the problem is that the story is too long and we don't have enough time for all of it. I need a ...
0
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0answers
48 views
“The South” by Jorge Luis Borges: book/movie differences?
What are some of the differences and similarities between the book "The South" and the movie? The book is about Juan Dahlmann with his accident. I know that the cat is in different places, that the ...
1
vote
1answer
88 views
What's the name of that short story written by C.S. Lewis about female vanity?
There's a short story written by the Christian author C.S. Lewis concerning the vanity and solipsism of women, but, for the life of me, I cannot remember the name, and a Google search proved fruitless....
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0answers
27 views
Is Irene actually delusional in “The Famine King”?
At the end of "The Famine King", we are given the impression that Irene is delusional and that everything that relates to the windigo is actually just imagined:
“Where did that bruise come from?” ...
1
vote
1answer
61 views
What's going on in Charlotte Riddell's Old House in Vauxhall Walk?
Maybe I'm looking too hard for meanings that aren't there, but can someone explain to me what's going on in Charlotte Riddell's Old House in Vauxhall Walk?
How was the second burglar caught?
What was ...
3
votes
1answer
83 views
“The impostor magician Smerdis” from Borges
In the Jorge Luis Borges short story Tlön, Uqbar, Orbis Tertius the only historical name the narrator and Bioy recognize from the cyclopaedia entry on Uqbar is that of
the impostor magician Smerdis,...
3
votes
1answer
170 views
What is “the fabled obelisk” alluding to in The Boy at Mugby?
In this fragment from The Boy at Mugby within paragraph 60:
The swelling tumult was arrested in its rise. Sniff, bore away by his servile disposition, had drored up his leg with a higher and a ...
-2
votes
1answer
70 views
Trying to re-find a horror/suspense short story involving a painting [closed]
I remember in high school our class read a horror/suspense story involving a man who finds a painting at a garage sale. I can't remember many other details about it but would like very much to read it ...
2
votes
0answers
47 views
Book by eastern European author about small house toys including a dog called Floki
I vaguely remember one book from my childhood, which I would be glad to have around. I do not recall much, but I think that it was written by (possibly) Slovenian author, or Slovak. Perhaps even Czech ...
10
votes
1answer
260 views
Short horror story I read two years ago about a Jack-in-the-box
About two years ago I read a short story about a Jack-in-the-box that is unused. I believe that he was at the bottom of the toy box and where he came from was unknown.
In the house were a bunch of ...
4
votes
1answer
51 views
What is this children's short story about an expat English girl who wants to pick primroses on her birthday?
I remember reading as a child a fictional short story about the difficulties that an English girl had fitting in after moving to America. The children at her school make fun of her using words like "...
3
votes
1answer
82 views
Identification of an American short story about a horse that can't carry two train robbers
I apologize in advance if the details I'm about to provide are too poor or distorted by my memory.
My father told me once of a short story which (if memory serves) is made up of the following plot: ...
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0answers
28 views
How does irony contribute to the Flannery O'Connor stories “A Good Man is Hard to Find” and “Good Country People”?
In Flannery O’Connor's short stories “A Good Man is Hard to Find” and “Good Country People”, how does irony affect the reader's perception of the narrative and how it is used to construct the plot?
...
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0answers
32 views
Anyone know a book about a coat with rainbow square patterns?
I have a vague memory of a book my mum read to me before she passed away when I was very young. I think it was a book for young readers but it was decently thick. I'm from Australia, but I'm not sure ...
3
votes
0answers
47 views
Looking for the title of a folklore which was about moon princess being jealous of her sister sun princess
I read this short story back in middle school during my literature class when we were studying about folklore. It was about a moon princess being jealous of her sister sun princess so much that she ...
8
votes
1answer
74 views
Looking for an O.Henry story where a young man from the country working in the city marries a socialite and then goes for a visit to his home
The young man in the question takes his bride to his home in the countryside to meet his family. The author describes the following scene in exquisite detail:-
It's night and the entire family is ...
