Questions tagged [short-stories]
Questions about stories with a fully developed plot, themes, and characters, but significantly shorter and less detailed than a novel.
418
questions
0
votes
1answer
35 views
Short story about a wealthy man bringing his new wife to his childhood home, from when he was poor, which is in the mountains/wilderness
I'm looking for a short story that I think I listened to as an audiobook, in a collection with other stories, in the early 2000s, checked out from a library in Ashland, KY.
I was reminded of this when ...
4
votes
1answer
428 views
Short story about secret spy betrayed at a secret party, boss got stuck in trap while looking for files
I think I read it five or six years ago from a collection of novels written by one writer. A man is a spy in a secret illegal organization, one day he took part in a secret party, but he had been ...
4
votes
0answers
75 views
Why is Jacques Kohn wearing a “father-murderer” collar?
In the description of Jacques Kohn in the beginning of Isaac Bashevis Singer's "A Friend of Kafka", he's described as wearing this:
Although he still dressed in the style of a dandy, his ...
2
votes
2answers
58 views
Is Von Bork's “I've been there” the idiomatic expression here, in “His Last Bow”?
I’d like to ask about the sentence from His Last Bow by Conan Doyle.
“.. It was on my first arrival. I was invited to a week-end gathering at the country house of a cabinet minister. The conversation ...
6
votes
1answer
3k views
What does “more than I gave” mean in “I therefore named a price which was £500 more than I gave”?
I’d like to ask about the sentence from The Three Gables by Conan Doyle.
.. but naturally I was interested in what he said. I therefore named a
price which was £500 more than I gave.
Here I’m not ...
4
votes
0answers
42 views
Why does the Talkative Man's master say that one ought not to play the raga 'punnaga varali' at night?
In the short story The Snake-Song (a part of the collection titled Malgudi Days), the Talkative Man describes an event in his youth that led to him having to abandon his music: the Talkative Man had ...
14
votes
1answer
940 views
Short story about a detective and criminal who disguise themselves and interact while in pursuit
I read a short story around 1996 in the US. I think it was part of a 5th grade reader book (kind of a compilation of short stories at the appropriate reading level). I remember thinking the story was ...
1
vote
0answers
49 views
What is the correct translation of the title “Les Fourmis” by Boris Vian?
The literal translation of "les fourmis" is "the ants". It is one of the titles under which the story was published in English (for example, the translation by Rawdon Corbett).
The ...
4
votes
1answer
73 views
What is the meaning of cleaning the samovar in “To Be Held for Reference” by Rudyard Kipling?
From "To Be Held for Reference" by Rudyard Kipling:
“All things considered, I doubt whether you are the luckier. I do not refer to your extremely limited classical attainments, or your ...
1
vote
0answers
49 views
What's the title of the short story about wife accidentally eating all of her husbands food so she cooked “something” instead?
I am not actually sure if this is a story I have watched, or read, or both. Certainly I have watched it as I have pictures on my mind. Anyway, the plot is: The wife is (I guess) abused by her husband. ...
29
votes
4answers
10k views
How could sixty cents of $1.87 be in pennies?
The first three sentences of O. Henry's Gift of the Magi are as follows:
One dollar and eighty-seven cents. That was all. And sixty cents of it
was in pennies.
I've always wondered about this. This ...
3
votes
0answers
49 views
Katherine Anne Porter's “HE”: What is He?
I recently read Katherine Anne Porter's "He", and, after reading it twice, am still left in the dark about one thing. It is said that "Rolls of fat covered Him like an overcoat", ...
0
votes
1answer
125 views
Analyzing Thomas Mcguane's “Balloons”
Recently, The New Yorker came out with Thomas Mcguane's short story "Balloons". It is a short piece of fiction, really. However, it wasn't clear to me what the author intended to convey ...
-1
votes
1answer
70 views
Is “Doctor Marigold” the nickname of the cheap-jack, or is “Marigold” his real name?
Doctor Marigold is the titular "cheap-jack" in Dickens' Doctor Marigold. Is "Marigold" his real name, with "Doctor" an addition, or is "Doctor Marigold" a ...
3
votes
0answers
46 views
Tragedy About Bear Whose Mom Died
Trigger warning: story deals with death, depression, graphic abuse of animals.
I haven't been able to find this short story. I don't recall if I heard it as part of a podcast or read it online. I came ...
4
votes
1answer
111 views
What does “perverse madonna” mean?
What is a "perverse madonna"? In the short story "The Boarding House" by James Joyce, Polly is compared to a "perverse madonna".
Polly was a slim girl of nineteen; she ...
4
votes
1answer
103 views
Identification of a Maupassant short story where a young man is upset by the past infidelities of his mistress
In a short story by Maupassant, a young man is upset by the past infidelities of his mistress, a rather paradoxical situation since he came much later after the infidelities (and somehow benefited ...
2
votes
1answer
98 views
Which Maupassant short stories are set during the Franco-Prussian War of 1870?
I read somewhere that Maupassant wrote ten short stories on the 1870 war between France and Prussia. I know "Boule de suif", "Deux amis", "Un duel", "Madame Sauvage&...
2
votes
1answer
42 views
Why is the gesture of the rebel noble in “The Man with the Scar”?
In the William Somerset Maugham short story "The Man with the Scar", the general considers the gesture of the rebel as a noble gesture. I don't understand why. He killed his love, the girl ...
5
votes
1answer
87 views
A man is in court because a company wants his prostheses back
I forgot the title of the short story.
It is about a man who is in court because of his prostheses.
If I remember correctly he was a famous motorbiker.
A company wants all his prostheses back, because ...
1
vote
2answers
70 views
In The Blue Cross, what is the mailbag trick?
From the Father Brown story "The Blue Cross":
It was he who had kept up an unaccountable and close correspondence with a young lady whose whole letter-bag was intercepted, by the ...
5
votes
1answer
328 views
What are nuts and super-nuts in Saki's “Beasts and Super-Beasts”?
In Saki's Beasts and Super-Beasts he refers to "Nuts" and "Super-Nuts". For example, we have
“You are not going to be what they call a Nut, are you?” she inquired with some ...
3
votes
1answer
138 views
What do the yellow banners in Edgar Allan Poe's “The Haunted Palace” symbolize?
The story "The Fall of the House of Usher" by Edgar Allan Poe contains a poem, "The Haunted Palace", which starts like this:
In the greenest of our valleys,
By good angels ...
1
vote
0answers
45 views
In “The Third Level”, does the third level really exist or is it a mere hallucination?
In the short story "The Third Level" by Jack Finney, does the third level in the Grand Central Station really exist or, is it just in Charley's imagination? Does Sam Wiener really go to 1894,...
1
vote
0answers
44 views
Short story, 19th century: French country priest and devil exchange subjectivities
I am looking for a 19th century short story. I thought it was written by Guy de Maupassant, but didn't find it. A French country priest starts having vivid dreams that he is a diabolical courtier in ...
10
votes
1answer
140 views
Sci-fi short story about not getting into cars with strangers
I read this story in English in the 2000s (although it was probably much older), in a collection or anthology of several short stories by different authors; I think the collections may have been ...
1
vote
2answers
945 views
What literary device is used in from “one thing to another”?
The extract is
Then, from one thing to another, M. Hamel went on to talk of the French language, saying that it was the most beautiful language in the world — the clearest, the most logical; that we ...
2
votes
1answer
65 views
In the short story “The Last Lesson” by Alphonse Daudet, what do the following signify?
"The Last Lesson" is a short story by Alphonse Daudet (link to the English translation).
What is the significance/symbolism/meaning of the following aspects of the story?
The watcher's ...
5
votes
1answer
49 views
What's the significance of leap years in Poe's “The Thousand-and-Second Tale of Scheherazade”?
Edgar Allan Poe's story “The Thousand-and-Second Tale of Scheherazade” (link to full text) has this curious sentence. This is about Scheherazade volunteering to marry the king, despite knowing that ...
3
votes
1answer
236 views
What is the “dark star” in Fritz Leiber's “The Pail of Air”?
Fritz Leiber's short story "A Pail of Air" (available to read online at Project Gutenberg) is set in a post-apocalyptic world, with a family who believe they are the only survivors after the ...
1
vote
1answer
23 views
Meaning of “seldom anything but”
These old folks, you must know, were quite poor, and had to work pretty hard for a living. Old Philemon toiled diligently in his garden, while Baucis was always busy with her distaff, or making a ...
1
vote
1answer
70 views
What is the meaning of “broads” in Hemingway's short story Fifty Grand?
What is the meaning of "broads" in Hemingway's short story Fifty Grand? Here's the context:
The three of us, Jack Brennan, Soldier Bartlett, and I were in Hanley’s. There were a couple of ...
4
votes
1answer
70 views
Robot Beings who are hunted for fuel who say “Toot Toot” to each other
I remember a short story but can't remember the name of the story or author. It is about alien/robotic beings that have been hunted to the edge of extinction because they are an exceptional fuel ...
0
votes
1answer
18 views
What does “who allows his honesty the benefit of the doubt” mean?
I was reading A.G. Gardiner’s On Umbrella Morals and in the second paragraph occurs these lines
In fact he is a thoroughly honest man who allows his honesty the benefit of the doubt.
I want an ...
0
votes
1answer
60 views
Understanding the last lines from Oscar Wilde’s The Model Millionaire
The Model Millionaire is a short story about a young man, named Hughie Erskin, who although does not have much money himself, is moved to pity by the sight of an elderly beggar who is posing as model ...
1
vote
0answers
51 views
In “Should Wizard Hit Mommy?” is Claire white? [duplicate]
In John Updike's short story "Should Wizard Hit Mommy?", is Jack's wife Claire a white woman? Are there any clues in the lesson that suggest that?
2
votes
1answer
86 views
A fable in which pigs with human heads are born because the swineherds had no women with them
I am trying to find a fable I read a long time ago (some 40 years ago, maybe), probably in a collection of short stories / fables, probably in Spanish.
From what I have been searching so far, it seems ...
0
votes
0answers
29 views
Short story - Man transports a dead dog to a field, but gets accused of murder with the blood in his van considered to be evidence
I think I read this in an anthology, probably in the 1980s or 1990s, possibly one of the Alfred Hitchcock anthologies. At the beginning, a man is transporting a dead dog to a field to bury it. I'm not ...
0
votes
0answers
55 views
Manga one-shot, guy helps bullied girl and competition with penalty for not speak well
I am looking for a one shot about a girl (I think wearing glasses) who can't speak loudly, and whose English is bad. Even her teacher has a hard time with her. A guy who sees her get bullied helps ...
2
votes
1answer
96 views
Is either Rhoda Brook or Gertrude Lodge portrayed negatively in “The Withered Arm”?
Thomas Hardy's short story "The Withered Arm" (freely available to read online) revolves largely around two female characters, Rhoda Brook and Gertrude Lodge, the two "viewpoint" ...
6
votes
1answer
575 views
Why is the country conjuror referred to as a “white wizard”?
In Thomas Hardy's short story "The Withered Arm" (freely available to read online), Gertrude Lodge and Rhona Brook go together to see a man named Trendle, often called Conjuror Trendle, who ...
3
votes
1answer
100 views
“What the Turk do it matter to us”?
In the opening chapter of Thomas Hardy's "The Withered Arm", the following passage is found (emphasis mine):
The discussion waxed so warm that the purr of the milk streams became jerky, ...
1
vote
1answer
50 views
Spy story involving a strong magnet, a ludicrously precise X-Ray machine, and a code book
I read this somewhere in the early 90s, from a paperback book, in English.
I would have sworn that this was one of the stories in Alfred Hitchcock's Sinister Spies collection, as I remember it being ...
3
votes
0answers
44 views
What is the underlying message of the first story of 听你的 (“Up To You”)?
I read an (untitled) short story: the first chapter of 《听你的》 (full text is here), and I don't feel I fully understand the plot. Here's my summarization:
The main character "you" (unnamed) ...
2
votes
0answers
34 views
Short story in orient-style city, man abusing the children who teaches him to play an instrument, covered by his wife
I am looking for what I think is a short story that I read approximately 8-10 years ago. I read it in French, but I think it was a translation.
I vaguely remember that the story is set in a oriental-...
9
votes
1answer
798 views
Identification of a short story about a short irrefutable self-evident proof that God exists that is kept secret
I am trying to find a short story (about 20 - 30 pages long) I read a couple of years ago. Here is what I recall:
The central idea is that a [catholic] priest creates (and writes) a very short (about ...
2
votes
0answers
63 views
What short story has a soldier deliver a secret message like “shoot the messenger”?
I recall a story, written in English, about a British or American WW1 or WW2 soldier who has to cross enemy lines to deliver a message which he was not to read. In the rain and mud, fearing the ink ...
2
votes
2answers
257 views
Roald Dahl short story - wife kills drunkard husband by spiking his drink
I am trying to remember the name of a short story by Roald Dahl, about a man who systematically got drunk at home every Saturday night. His wife kills him, I think by putting something in his drink.
...
2
votes
0answers
56 views
Short story - man obsessed with news, then lives solitary life, then goes on killing rampage
I remember reading a short story about a married couple where a man was always obsessed with the news (I think it was on the radio) until his wife was so exasperated with him she nagged him and drove ...
-1
votes
0answers
61 views
Trying to find a creepy children’s book I read in elementary school
When I was in elementary school (from 2013-2018), I read a picture book I saw on the classroom shelves. It was a short picture book where a black cat would walk through an abandoned castle/manor of ...
