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Up At A Villa by Helen Simpson Short Story Analysis
“Up At A Villa” is a short story by Helen Simpson, opening her 2011 collection In-flight Entertainment. This is a lyrical short story full of symbolism. Cover copy tells us to expect work a la Alice Munro. Of all the stories here, the images in “Up At A Villa” are most reminiscent of Munro — […]
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Two Types Of Short Stories
Length aside, short stories are not like other works. There is something just… different about them. This difference is not about length; it’s about function. However, some stories function no differently from a novel. They’re simply… shorter. This post is an exploration of the qualitative differences between what we might call The Literary Short Story […]
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In-flight Entertainment by Helen Simpson Analysis
“In-flight Entertainment” is a short story by Helen Simpson, published in her 2010 collection of the same name.
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Something Childish But Very Natural by Katherine Mansfield Short Story Analysis
“Something Childish But Very Natural” is a short story by Katherine Mansfield, published 1913, 1924. The story is named after a poem Harry reads in the book-stall. The poem is by Samuel Taylor Coleridge. This poem provides Mansfield’s re-visioning with a nutshell emotional arc:
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How To Write Like Alice Munro
Of course, no one but Alice Munro can write like Alice Munro. That is my disclaimer on each of my sporadic series of ‘How To Write Like…’ posts. If you read a lot of Munro’s works carefully, sooner or later, in one of her short stories, you will come face to face with yourself; this […]
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Tricks by Alice Munro Short Story Analysis
I have a soft spot for short stories about spinsters about town, enjoying their passions in solitary fashion. “Tricks” by Alice Munro calls to mind Katherine Mansfield’s “Miss Brill”, especially after mention of the symbolic scarf: Miss Brill, you may recall, wears a fur. Robin of Munro’s story “Tricks” does not; she is instead disturbed by someone else’s fox scarf…
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Powers by Alice Munro Short Story Analysis
“Powers” is the final story in the Runaway collection by Alice Munro, published 2004. I find this story the most challenging of the lot — as in, what in holy heck was that all about? I’m going to have to write about “Powers” in order to understand it. Here goes my best shot. What can […]
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Pictures by Katherine Mansfield Short Story Analysis
“Pictures” is a short story by Katherine Mansfield, published 1919. The London Evening Standard said of the story ‘it is stark realism from first word to last and yet it gives an impression of infinite understanding and pity’. The character Ada Moss was inspired by a woman Mansfield met three years earlier. They had sat […]
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Trespasses by Alice Munro Short Story Analysis
“Trespasses” is a short story by Canadian author Alice Munro, included in the collection Runaway, published 2006. This piece might challenge everything you’ve learned about how to structure a story. All the parts are there, but not as you’d expect. If Alice Munro had anonymously joined one of my writing critique groups over the years, […]
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Graduation Afternoon by Stephen King Short Story Analysis
“Just After Sunset” is a 2007 short story by Stephen King. This 9/11 story was first published in Postscripts Magazine.
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Blackberries by Thomas Kenneally Short Story Analysis
“Blackberries” is a short story by Thomas Keneally, included in an anthology I got free when buying another book at Dymocks back in 2009. Allen and Unwin have since released a number of short stories from big name Australian authors as eBooks, including “Blackberries”, available for a couple of bucks each.
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Singing My Sister Down by Margo Lanagan Analysis
“Singing My Sister Down” is a horror short story by Australian author Margo Lanagan. Find it in Lanagan’s collection Black Juice, published by Allen and Unwin. Black Juice was published in 2004, but “Singing My Sister Down” has proven especially resonant with readers, anthologised numerous times since. “Singing My Sister Down” is now a modern Australian […]
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A View Of Mount Warning by Robert Drewe Analysis
“A View Of Mount Warning” is an Australian short story by Robert Drewe, and can be found in his collection The True Colour Of The Sea (2018).
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Man-Size In Marble by Edith Nesbit Analysis
“Man-Size in Marble” (1893) is a gothic short story by Edith Nesbit. You can read it at Project Gutenberg, as part of Nesbit’s Grim Tales collection. This tale is her most widely anthologised short story. What must it be like to be ahead of one’s time? It’s happened to scientists over the years. The guy […]
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Symbolism and The Scarlet Ibis by James Hurst Short Story Analysis
What can I say about “The Scarlet Ibis” that isn’t on Wikipedia? This 1960 short story is loved by English teachers because of its clear literary symbols — a good introduction to symbolism, especially to colour symbolism. COLOUR SYMBOLISM Students can be highly suspicious of close reading when teachers talk about colours and their symbolism. Colours […]