Poe was controversial in his day. During his lifetime he was more popular as a literary critic than as a fiction writer and poet. Yet even in the 1840s his stories were published and talked about. He was credited with popularizing the short story as a literary format, and his invention of detective fiction won…
Tag: Analysis
Ha’penny – Short Story – Analysis
In Paton’s short story ‘‘Ha’penny,’’ the author creates a narrator who shares many of his inner thoughts with the reader. In the beginning, the narrator sounds very confident, especially in his relationships with the young boys in his care at the reformatory. Through his comments about how he performs his role as an authority figure,…
The Grasshopper and the Bell Cricket – Analysis
Although Kawabata was honored with the Nobel Prize for Literature for three of his novels, he preferred working in the genre of short stories, in particular, stories so small they can fit into the palm of one’s hand. These stories, which Kawabata continued to write over a span of fifty years, were not translated into…
Forty-Five a Month – Analysis
Narayan’s short fiction in general is often viewed as an insightful exploration of Indian life, and it has been observed that while Narayan explores aspects of the human condition, he does so on a personal level and that he avoids making overt political statements. In particular, Narayan’s ‘‘Forty-Five a Month’’ has been regarded as a…
The Doll’s House by Katherine Mansfield – Analysis
Mansfield’s story ‘‘The Doll’s House’’ is a work that relies on the careful balance of its elements in order to make its unstated points felt. Elements are juxtaposed against each other to highlight their similarities and differences. Mansfield does this tactfully and subtly, so that even a careful reader might not see it until the…
Dog Star by Arthur C Clarke – Analysis
Clarke wrote about science and its future impact with a greater purity of intention than any of his contemporaries in the science fiction category. It would not be going too far to say that Clarke’s main purpose—especially in ‘‘Dog Star’’—is to instruct and inform. Clarke’s readers in the 1960s were living at the beginning of…
Contents of the Dead Man’s Pocket – Analysis
Jack Finney’s third story to see print in 1956 was the outstanding suspense tale, ‘‘Contents of the Dead Man’s Pocket,’’ which appeared in the October 26, 1956 issue of Collier’s. This was to be Jack Finney’s last story in Collier’s, where his first published work had appeared in 1947. The magazine, which had been founded…
Contents of the Dead Man’s Pocket – Exposition – Essay
Much of Finney’s body of work addresses the thematic concern of time. Indeed, The Third Level, the volume that includes ‘‘Contents of the Dead Man’s Pocket,’’ has many stories about time and time travel. The opening story, ‘‘The Third Level,’’ for example, concerns a man who finds a third level at Grand Central Station, one…
The Censors by Luisa Valenzuela – Analysis – Essay
In an interview with Magnarelli in Reflections/Refractions: Reading Luisa Valenzuela, Luisa Valenzuela discusses her views on censorship, describing the different ways censorship can affect individuals. In particular, Valenzuela points out that one type of censorship occurs when an individual ‘‘will often refuse to read what he fears might hurt him, what might raise his consciousness…
B. Wordsworth by V. S. Naipaul – Analysis
Is B. Wordsworth, the character who appears in Naipaul’s short story of that name, a real poet or is he a fake, a dreamer? His name, which is presumably not the name he inherited but one he adopted for himself to fit his self-image, clearly shows how he wants others to think of him. The…