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Bunny Stew by Mikki Mares Short Story Analysis
Disney typically takes a nightmarish, harrowing fairy tale and bowdlerises it according to the more conservative end of its perceived audience. But lest we forget: In 1993 the Disney corporation also published a short story as disturbing as your typical pre-Grimm fairytales, replete with cannibalism. Disney had run a “Scary Tales” competition, and “Bunny Stew”…
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The Frog Prince by Robert Coover Short Story Analysis
“The Frog Prince” is a short story by American writer Robert Coover. It appeared in the January 19, 2014 edition of The New Yorker and was discussed at The New Yorker short story podcast by Deborah Treisman and Gabe Hudson, a former student of Coover’s. Informed by the podcast discussion, I am on the lookout…
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Arnold Lobel’s Frog and Toad: A Case Study In Kindness
Conflict, conflict, conflict. Writers seeking storytelling advice are constantly bombarded with the message: Every story needs conflict; nay, every scene! But is this really true? When advice-givers say ‘conflict’, what are they really talking about? Successful stories don’t need conflict… if conflict means arguing, wrestling and wishing each other dead. Stories need opponents. Here’s the…
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Snowy Landscapes In Art And Illustration
Like the various underwater scenes, snow can be many colours other than white. The colour of snow depends on the colour of the sky, the ambient light. As you’ll see below, snow can also be quite brightly coloured.
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Miracle Polish by Steven Millhauser Short Story Analysis
“Miracle Polish” is a (possibly) fabulist short story by American author Steven Millhauser, published in the print edition of the November 14, 2011 issue of The New Yorker. More recently, Stuart Dybek joined Deborah Treisman on The New Yorker podcast to read and discuss this story. This short story is a great example of: We…
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Checkered Floors and Backgrounds In Art And Illustration
Header painting: Interior of Monaco Anita Catarina Malfatti (1889 -1964) São Paulo, Brazil
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Open House on Haunted Hill by John Wiswell Short Story Analysis
“Open House on Haunted Hill” is a Nebula Award winning short (ghost?) story by John Wiswell, published in 2020. I’ve recently immersed myself in ghost stories from the 18- and 1900s. But how does one go about writing a contemporary ghost story? Listen to this story read by Levar Burton on the Levar Burton Reads…
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The Signal-man by Charles Dickens Short Story Analysis
“The Signal-man” (1866) is a ghost story by iconic English author Charles Dickens. If you’ve ever fantasised about leaving your open office or customer service job to work alone in a tiny box in the middle of nowhere, unbothered and free to get on with your straight-forward but very necessary job, this might be the…
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Donnie Darko Film Study
Donnie Darko is a 2001 film set in 1988, in a fictional Virginia town called Middlesex. This genre blend of drama, mystery and science fiction is precisely ambiguous enough to generate much discussion about what is meant to have happened. This is ideal ‘cult-following’ material. Note that Donnie Darko didn’t make much of a splash when…
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Afternoon in Linen by Shirley Jackson Short Story Analysis
Kristen Roupenian joins Deborah Treisman to read and discuss “Afternoon in Linen,” by Shirley Jackson, which appeared in a 1943 issue of the New Yorker magazine. I count this story as a perfect example of the dark carnivalesque.
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The Princess and the Pea by Hans Christian Andersen Fairy Tale Analysis
The Princess and the Pea was first published in 1835, one of a handful of satirical, colloquial fairy tales in an unbound collection by Danish storyteller Hans Christian Andersen. The colloquial language didn’t go down well with critics at the time, who also didn’t appreciate that Andersen’s silly little “wonder tales” failed to convey a…
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The Axial Cut In Narrative Art
The axial cut is a film editing technique. It is a type of jump cut useful to the horror genres. In any ‘jump cut’, the viewer sees a ‘jump in the visual’. An axial cut is a type of jump cut, where the camera suddenly moves closer to or further away from its subject, along an invisible line…
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The Shawl by Cynthia Ozick Short Story Analysis
The Shawl (1980) is a short story by American writer Cynthia Ozick, born 1928. In 2014, Joyce Carol Oates joined Deborah Treisman at The New Yorker to read and discuss Ozick’s story. This horrific short story reminds me most of a narrative from another side of the same war: Grave of the Fireflies. Both are…
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The Colour Purple Symbolism
Before the concept for ‘blue’ existed, Homer wrote famously in The Odyssey of the “wine-dark sea.” Sure, it might’ve looked purple even to a contemporary audience, but we know from other writings around the world that the concept of ‘blue’ was late to enter human consciousness. “The Odyssey” suggests that blue was included the concept…
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What do birds symbolize in literature?
Birds are much older than we are — living dinosaurs. Across cultures, birds function as smart collaborators with humans. We now know how smart (some) birds really are, but we have long had a sense of their canniness. The smartest bird in the world is currently thought to be the New Zealand Kea, which isn’t…