W. Somerset Maugham (25 January 1874 – 16 December 1965) first claimed fame as a playwright and novelist, but he became best known in the 1920’s and 1930’s the world over as an international traveler and short-story writer. Appearing in… Read More ›
Short Story
Analysis of Bobbie Ann Mason’s Stories
Often compared with Ann Beattie, Raymond Carver, and Frederick Barthelme, Bobbie Ann Mason (born May 1, 1940) writes fiction that reads like life. Her characters struggle with jobs, family, and self-awareness, continually exuding a lively sense of being. Those who… Read More ›
Analysis of Katherine Mansfield’s Stories
Katherine Mansfield’s (14 October 1888 – 9 January 1923) themes are not hard to discover. In 1918, she set herself the tasks of communicating the exhilarating delicacy and peacefulness of the world’s beauty and also of crying out against “corruption.”… Read More ›
Analysis of Thomas Mann’s Stories
Thomas Mann’s (6 June 1875 – 12 August 1955) early stories are set in late nineteenth century and early twentieth century Europe, primarily in Germany and Italy. The protagonists are artists, disillusioned romantics with an ironic view of the cost… Read More ›
Analysis of Bernard Malamud’s Stories
All Bernard Malamud’s (April 26, 1914 – March 18, 1986) fiction seems based on a single affirmation: Despite its disappointments, horror, pain, and suffering, life is truly worth living. His work may be best understood in the context of mid-twentieth… Read More ›
Analysis of Carson McCullers’s Stories
Carson McCullers’s (February 19, 1917 – September 29, 1967) short stories (ruling out for the moment the novella The Ballad of the Sad Café, 1943, serial; 1951, book) often explore the intense emotional content of seemingly undramatic situations. Plot is… Read More ›
Analysis of Jack London’s Stories
Jack London’s (January 12, 1876 – November 22, 1916) fame as a writer came about largely through his ability to interpret realistically humans’ struggle in a hostile environment. Early in his career, London realized that he had no talent for… Read More ›
Analysis of Doris Lessing’s Stories
Doris Lessing (22 October 1919 – 17 November 2013) engaged in a lifelong process of self-education, becoming involved with all the important intellectual and political movements of the twentieth century: Freudian and Jungian psychology, Marxism, feminism, existentialism, mysticism, sociobiology, and speculative… Read More ›
Analysis of D. H. Lawrence’s Stories
D. H. Lawrence’s (11 September 1885 – 2 March 1930) early stories are set, except for “The Prussian Officer,” in the English Midlands; their plot and characters are a thinly veiled autobiography and are built on incidents that Lawrence would… Read More ›
Analysis of Mary Lavin’s Stories
Neither national nor international events find their way into Neither national nor international events find their way into Mary Lavin’s (10 June 1912 – 25 March 1996) fiction, which is crammed with incidents from the lives of Dublin shopkeepers, country… Read More ›
Analysis of Ring Lardner’s Stories
The question that almost inevitably arises in any discussion of Ring Lardner’s (March 5, 1885 – September 25, 1933) stories is: What is Lardner’s attitude toward his characters and by extension toward the culture out of which they come? Is… Read More ›
Analysis of Rudyard Kipling’s Stories
Many of Rudyard Kipling’s earliest short stories are set in the India of his early childhood years in Bombay and his newspaper days in Lahore. The intervening years at school in England had perhaps increased his sensitivity to the exotic… Read More ›
Analysis of Barbara Kingsolver’s Stories
Barbara Kingsolver’s (born. April 8, 1955) short stories are notable for their clear-eyed, sometimes ironic, and always empathic look at the daily lives of ordinary people. Her narrators are mostly female or compassionate omniscient voices telling stories of homecomings, intergenerational… Read More ›
Analysis of Jamaica Kincaid’s Stories
Jamaica Kincaid (born, May 25, 1949) is noted for her lyrical use of language. Her short stories and novels have a hypnotic, poetic quality that results from her utilization of rhythm and repetition. Her images, drawn from her West Indian childhood, recall… Read More ›
Analysis of James Joyce’s Stories
In August, 1904, James Joyce (2 February 1882 – 13 January 1941) wrote to his friend C. P. Curran: “I am writing a series of epicleti. . . . I call the series Dubliners to betray the soul of that… Read More ›
Analysis of Ruth Prawer Jhabvala’s Stories
Ruth Prawer Jhabvala’s (7 May 1927 – 3 April 2013) lack of ties to any one place may account for her objectivity as a writer. However, her detachment does not prevent her from empathizing with her characters, nor does her… Read More ›
Analysis of Sarah Orne Jewett’s Stories
When a young reader wrote to Sarah Orne Jewett (September 3, 1849 – June 24, 1909) in 1899 to express admiration of her stories for girls, Jewett encouraged her to continue reading: You will always have the happiness of finding friendships… Read More ›
Analysis of Henry James’s Stories
Henry James (15 April 1843 –28 February 1916) believed that an author must be granted his donnée, or central idea, and then be judged on the execution of his material. James’s stories are about members of high society. The characters… Read More ›
Analysis of Shirley Jackson’s Stories
Shirley Jackson’s (December 14, 1916 – August 8, 1965) stories seem to center on a single concern: Almost every story is about a protagonist’s discovering or failing to discover or successfully ignoring an alternate way of perceiving a set of… Read More ›
Analysis of Washington Irving’s Stories
Washington Irving’s (April 3, 1783 – November 28, 1859) masterpiece, The Sketch Book of Geoffrey Crayon, Gent., has a historical importance few American books can match. No previous American book achieved a really significant popular and critical success in England,… Read More ›
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