James Baldwin’s “Sonny’s Blues” opens as the narrator learns from a newspaper that his younger brother, Sonny, has been arrested for dealing heroin. The narrator is taking the subway to his high-school teaching job. At the end of the school day, the “insular and mocking” laughter of his students reminds him that as youths he…
Tag: Short Stories
The Rocking Horse Winner – Analysis
“The Rocking-Horse Winner” belongs to the group of stories D. H. Lawrence wrote in the last years of his life. During this period, critics have noted, he abandoned the realism that characterizes his mid-career work, and turned toward a style of short story that more closely resembles the fable or folktale. In the words of…
The Rocking Horse Winner – Setting, Symbolism & Style
Setting D. H. Lawrence was writing during the early part of the twentieth century, and he, like most writers of the day, was significantly influenced by World War I. He had read and loved the novels of nineteenth-century writers George Eliot, author of Silas Marner, and Thomas Hardy, author of Tess of the D’Urbervilles, but…
The Rocking Horse Winner – Themes
In “The Rocking-Horse Winner,” a young boy, Paul, perceives that there is never enough money in his family, he sets out to find a way to get money through luck. He discovers that if he rides his rocking-horse fast enough, he will somehow “know” the name of the winning horse in the next race. He…
The Rocking Horse Winner – Characters
Bassett Bassett is the family gardener who helps Paul place bets on horses. He used to work around horses and racing and he talks about racing all the time, so it seems reasonable that Paul would seek his advice. He takes the boy seriously and follows all the boy’s instructions in placing the bets. He…
The Rocking Horse Winner – Summary
D. H. Lawrence’s The Rocking-Horse Winner is the story of a boy’ s gift for picking the winners in horse races. An omniscient narrator relates the tale of a boy whose family is always short of money. His mother is incapable of showing love and is obsessed with the status that material wealth can provide….
The Red-Headed League: Analysis
Sherlock Holmes is one of the most legendary literary figures, not only among lovers of detective fiction. Stories of Holmes’ adventures—and there are only 56 short stories and 4 novels—have been translated throughout the world and made into plays, films, and television programs. There are more than 50 magazines devoted to the discussion of Sherlock…
The Red-Headed League: Themes
As the story of bank robbers thwarted by a capable investigator, Arthur Conan Doyle’s “The Red-Headed League” presents readers with a number of themes related to the classic contest between good and evil. The opposition between detective and criminal tests the warring values each represents. With the detective’s victory, the beliefs and qualities he embodies…
The Red-Headed League: Characters
Archie See Duncan Ross John Clay Clay’s apparent desire to learn the pawnbroking trade and his hobby of photography, like the assumed name of Spaulding, mask his intent to rob the City and Suburban Bank. Identified as a “murderer, thief, smasher, and forger,” he is skilled enough at crime to have eluded the police for…
The Red-Headed League: Story Summary
Arthur Conan Doyle’s classic short story opens with Dr. Watson dropping in on his friend Sherlock Holmes. He finds Holmes in conversation with a man with fiery red hair, a Mr. Jabez Wilson. Wilson has come to Holmes with a problem concerning an organization for which he was working but that has mysteriously disappeared. Wilson…