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The Doll’s House by Katherine Mansfield Short Story Analysis
“The Doll’s House” is a short story by Katherine Mansfield, set in New Zealand, written 1922. This is Mansfield’s most accessible story, and a good introduction to her work. Its main themes are seen across children’s literature as well. Unlike stories such as “The Garden Party” and “Bliss”, the reader is not required to fill […]
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Sun and Moon by Katherine Mansfield Short Story Analysis
“Sun and Moon” is a short story by Katherine Mansfield, written 1918. The story opens with a description of gold chairs, which reminds me of a totally unrelated Colin Carpenter (Comedy Company) skit: And while I’m being random, I read recently in a Marcus Chown science book that tides are caused by both the moon […]
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The Voyage by Katherine Mansfield Short Story Analysis
“The Voyage” is a short story by Katherine Mansfield, written 1921. Find it in The Garden Party collection. Katherine Mansfield always disliked intellectualism and aestheticism (one thing she had in common with her husband John Middleton Murray). She strove to combine a realist way of writing with personal and relatable symbols. “The Voyage” is a […]
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Miss Brill by Katherine Mansfield Short Story Analysis
“Miss Brill” is a short story by Katherine Mansfield, written 1920, three years before she died. The emotional valence of “Miss Brill” is similar to that in “Bliss“. In both stories, a young woman starts off happy but then an unwelcome Anagnorisis sends her plunging into a downcast mood. In both stories, the reader must […]
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Bliss by Katherine Mansfield Short Story Analysis
“Bliss” is a short story by Katherine Mansfield and one of Mansfield’s last. “Bliss” is offered as an example of a ‘lyrical’ short story. From a writing point of view, “Bliss” is interesting for its struggle scene, in which the main character experiences purely positive emotions rather than the negative charge which normally goes hand-in-hand […]
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The Wind Blows by Katherine Mansfield Short Story Analysis
On the surface level, “The Wind Blows” by Katherine Mansfield is a coming-of-age short story about an adolescent girl (Matilda) who wakes up one morning, nervous and tense. While the wind blows outside, she gets ready for her music lesson. Before she leaves she has a minor disagreement with her mother. She has her music […]
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A Dill Pickle by Katherine Mansfield Short Story Analysis
“A Dill Pickle” is a 1917 short story by Katherine Mansfield. Over the course of a single café scene, a woman meets up with a former beau. This is a feminist story about how men and women tend to communicate, and illuminates Mansfield’s deep interest in psychology. I’m in a restaurant in Cambridge and this […]
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The Fly by Katherine Mansfield Short Story Analysis
“The Fly” is a short story by Katherine Mansfield, published 1922. CONNECTION TO MANSFIELD’S OWN LIFE Mansfield wrote “The Fly” in February 1922 as she was finding her tuberculosis treatment debilitating. She died in January of 1923, soon after its publication. Thirty-four seems young to be contemplating old age, and to write about an elderly […]
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Reunion by John Cheever Short Story
“Reunion” is a short story by John Cheever, first published 1962 in The New Yorker. You can listen to it read by Richard Ford. SETTING OF REUNION As Richard Ford says, Grand Central Station is a place where anything could happen — any two people could meet. The story is set in the 1950s or […]
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Negatives by Annie Proulx Short Story Analysis
“Negatives” is a short story by Annie Proulx, first published 1994 in Esquire, later included in the Heart Songs collection. You can read it online, with limited unpaid access. “Negatives” is the most brutal of the stories in this collection. Content note for rape. Reasons to read this story: THE DEEP AUTUMN CAME QUICKLY. Abandoned […]
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Electric Arrows by Annie Proulx Short Story Analysis
“Electric Arrows”, a short story by Annie Proulx, was published in the late 1990s. Proulx was ahead of the vanguard, keenly aware of cultural misappropriation when most folk were offering their takes on political correctness.
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A Run of Bad Luck by Annie Proulx Short Story Analysis
“A Run Of Bad Luck” by Annie Proulx is a short story which explores the nature of luck, and by extension, the nature of fate.
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Bedrock by Annie Proulx Short Story Analysis
“Bedrock” is a short story from Annie Proulx’s collection Heart Songs, published 1999. This is a subversive feminist tale, which challenges the readers assumptions about ‘gold-digger’ women and especially those we dismiss as ‘rednecks’. “Bedrock” makes a good mentor text if you: Are writing a story in which the reader is asked to switch sympathies, […]
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The Last Question by Isaac Asimov
“The Last Question” by Isaac Asimov is a science fiction short story first published in 1956. The ideas are even more relevant today than they were back in the 1950s. Isaac Asimov was an ideas man. I generally find his work hard to read because I read for character first. Asimov worked the other way […]
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Stone City by Annie Proulx Short Story Analysis
“Stone City” is a short story by Annie Proulx, first published 1979, collected 20 years later in Heart Songs. Some of Proulx’s short stories are like compacted novels, and “Stone City” is one of those. The story of the humans is wrapped by the story of a fox, looking in from a slight distance. “Stone […]