Author Archives
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Analysis of Angela Carter’s The Fall River Axe Murders
“The Fall River Axe Murders” was first published in the London Review of Books in 1981 under the title “Mis-en-scene for Parricide”; it later appeared under its more familiar name in Angela Carter’s 1985 short story collection, Black Venus (Saints… Read More ›
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Analysis of James Joyce’s Eveline
This much-anthologized short story by James Joyce was first published in The Irish Homestead on September 10, 1904, and later became part of his famous collection Dubliners (1917). In contrast to the three stories of childhood that precede it, “Eveline”… Read More ›
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Analysis of John Fowles’s The Enigma
“The Enigma” is one of five short stories included in the collection The Ebony Tower. John Fowles’s working title for the collection was Variations; although he was convinced by his publisher to discard the original title, the stories constitute variations… Read More ›
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Analysis of John Fowles’s The Ebony Tower
In “The Ebony Tower,” John Fowles wrote a variation on his novel The Magus (1965). Both narratives present a young man who, guided by an older mentor figure, has to make life-determining decisions while being tempted by an artistic young… Read More ›
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Analysis of Joseph Conrad’s The Duel
As with many of his shorter pieces, Joseph Conrad interrupted work on a novel—in this case Chance—to write the Napoleonic novella The Duel. It was originally published serially in Britain as “The Duel—A Military Tale” in Pall Mall Magazine in… Read More ›
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Analysis of Bram Stoker’s The Dualitists
First published in the Theatre Annual (1887), “The Dualitists,” frequently cited as demonstrating one of Bram Stoker’s favorite themes, male bonding, evokes a world of children’s adventure stories. As in much of Stoker’s fiction, the driving force grows out of… Read More ›
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Analysis of J. G. Ballard’s Dream Cargoes
Included in the American edition of J. G. Ballard’s War Fever, “Dream Cargoes” summarizes some of the staple ingredients of Ballard’s writing while also prefiguring the ecological themes of his novel Rushing to Paradise (1994). The story focuses on Johnson,… Read More ›
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Analysis of Katherine Mansfield’s The Doll’s House
Published in The Dove’s Nest, Katherine Mansfield’s last collection of short stories, “The Doll’s House” belongs with “Prelude” (1920) and “At the Bay” (1922) among the Burnell stories, a trilogy based on the re-creation of a New Zealand childhood that… Read More ›
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Analysis of Wilkie Collins’s The Diary of Anne Rodway
First published in Charles Dickens’s magazine Household Words (July 19 and 26, 1856), the story was included in Wilkie Collins’s short story collection The Queen of Hearts (1859) as “Brother Owen’s Story of Anne Rodway.” The narrative is composed of… Read More ›
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Analysis of Elizabeth Taylor’s The Devastating Boys
Published in McCall’s magazine in May 1966, Elizabeth Taylor’s “The Devastating Boys” is a witty, poignant depiction of the change that occurs in the marriage of Harold, a self-involved Oxford archeology professor, and his wife Laura, when two black children… Read More ›
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Analysis of Graham Greene’s The Destructors
“The Destructors” first appeared serialized in two parts in Picture Post on July 24 and 31, 1954, and then was published in the collection Twenty-one Stories the same year. Graham Greene said in the preface to his Collected Stories, “I… Read More ›
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Analysis of Elizabeth Bowen’s The Demon Lover
Published first in the Listener and reprinted in Elizabeth Bowen’s collection The Demon Lover and Other Stories (1945), the title story is based on a traditional “border ballad” or folksong of the same title, the oldest version of which, “A… Read More ›
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Analysis of Rudyard Kipling’s Debits and Credits
The publication of this collection marked the end of a long fallow period for Rudyard Kipling in which he struggled with depression (following his son, John’s death in World War I) and a creative block. The collection of 14 stories,… Read More ›
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Analysis of James Joyce’s The Dead
James Joyce began writing “The Dead” in 1907, somewhat later than the other stories in Dubliners, the collection in which it was finally published in 1915. It is considerably longer than the other stories, and some commentators regard it not… Read More ›
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Analysis of D. H. Lawrence’s Daughters of the Vicar
This novella contrasts life-giving and life-denying attitudes, key themes in D. H. Lawrence’s stories. Salient details of Midlands country life give this story its realism: A miner’s widow plans brussels sprouts, meat, and apple pie for dinner; moleskin trousers smell… Read More ›
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Analysis of Katherine Mansfield’s The Daughters of the Late Colonel
Published in The Garden Party and concerned, like the title story of the collection, with “the diversity of life and how we try to fit in everything, Death included” (Mansfield 1985, 259), this story was written one year before Katherine… Read More ›
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Analysis of Elizabeth Gaskell’s A Dark Night’s Work
Serialized in Charles Dickens’s magazine All the Year Round (January–February 1863), Elizabeth Gaskell’s A Dark Night’s Work details the devastating effects of a tragic secret shared by Edward Wilkins, a widowed lawyer in the rural town of Hamley, his daughter… Read More ›
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Analysis of Henry James’s Daisy Miller
Originally subtitled “A Study,” this novella was first published by Leslie Stephen, the father of Virginia Woolf, in the Cornhill Magazine. The choice of a British press cost Henry James his American rights. The sheer amount of pirated versions, however,… Read More ›
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Analysis of George Egerton’s A Cross Line
This story by George Egerton (Mary Chavelita Dunne Bright) first appeared in the influential collection Keynotes. Published in 1893 by Elin Mathews and John Lane, it was the first book in a series of 33 volumes, 13 of which would… Read More ›
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Analysis of Julian Barnes’s Cross Channel
Cross Channel was Julian Barnes’s first book of short fiction. It collects 10 stories about the English experience of France over 350 years, from the 17th to the early 21st century. Five of these tales were first published in the… Read More ›
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