This is the last part of the overview to Carol Ann Duffy's poem "Havisham" which covers stanzas three and four of the poem in terms of content , namely: the puce curses, power of words and degeneration to an animal state, t he i ncubus image and vampirism, the white veil, wedding cake, honeymoon, red balloon and necrophili c thoughts and final stutter presen t in a poem that comes full c ircle through the choice of words used at the begin ning of each stanza . P art 1 g a ve a brief biography, discusse d the poem's structure (meter and rhymes), the sounds present in the poem and analyze d the persona of Miss Havisham (what is known about her from Great Expectations and how Duffy treats her case). P a rt 2 dealt with various points present in sta nzas 1 and 2 (enjambment , inability to escape, the notions of time and ageing, Miss Havisham's homicidal thoughts, green pebbl es, ropes on the back o f her hands, the conc ept of the spinster, the ...

Before reading this post, if you haven't already done so, please read the first part here . It has a very brief note on t he story's author , covers the plot, characters and setting. You can find the story itself here . This second part will deal with point of view, themes, symbolism, irony, the story's ti tle , and will t ry to give some explanations as to the reasons why Mrs. Sommers g ave in to temptation.

If I were to say that the typical love triangle is substituted for a different one in the opening paragraph of  Kate Chopin's "A Pair of Silk Stockings", few students would believe this is possible. In fact, when students give me feedback on this short story, it usually is negative, not because they didn't get it -- it's written plainly enough -- but because there's nothing going on in it, as they say. Well, ladies and gentlemen, this is a symptom of the disease rampant in the 21st century called 'boxofficematerialitis', an epidemic conjoined with 'keeptheirinterestbyusingquicksuccessionofimagesitis', which has given rise to what has been conveniently labelled attention deficit disorder. The fact of the matter is that if there's no real action, that is, action which contains a number of spectacular car chases, shoot-'em-up scenes, explosions, or dirty underhanded scheming (that results in one or all of the aforementioned chases, sc...

Some stories you know will be great the minute you read their title. Combine this fact with the name of their author and the result is a fireworks display.  Roald Dahl has written some of the most memorable stories in the last century because of their quirkiness and deep sense of raw reality disguised in simple, straight-forward prose. And like any good classic short stories, his behave in a way that make readers search for an alternative reality that will explain the whys and wherefores of human behavior. Patrick Maloney tells his pregnant wife he's leaving her. "What will Mary do about it?" is the question in a reader's mind and how is this tied to the title of the story? As is plain, from the get-go, questions arise that grow in number as the story progresses and leave us either giggling at the end of it alongside Mary or wriggling uneasily in our seats.

As you might have come to realize, short stories are my favorite literary genre because they are like little cans of double concentrated tomato paste that add that extra zing to narratives other genres are incapable of delivering. In fact, the shorter the story, the grander the zing.  Well, Kate Chopin's story is as short as good short stories come and she manages to deliver the goods quicker than the title she chose for her piece . The advan tage of such crisp little tales is that they're easier to dissect because of the limited number of words they contain. Every sentence and paragraph can be analyzed al most ad nausea m , a task too g ruelling to undertake when reading a novel. Because of this comprehensive examination, the full extent of an author's powers is appreciated and though ma ny would be prone to co nclude that restricted tales offer very few developments , angles and insights, the reader's knowledge that every word written was mindfully selected ...

Native American culture had become synonymous with axe-wielding, bow-and-arrow-carrying savages chasing after homely pioneers to scalp them, as early Hollywood productions of the 20th century would have us believe.  Fortunately for the world, those days are long past, and Native American writers have reclaimed their cultural heritage much in the same way as other writers from colonies struggling  for independence successfully did whilst "writing back to the Empire" through works we now come to categorize under the term post-colonial literature. Louise Erdrich has captured the torturous existence of individuals trapped within themselves and stripped of their very foundations in this story. To top it all, one of these characters is further stripped of his serenity as he is used by politicians and warmongers to fight in their stead, then cast aside to suffer the harrowing effects of modern-day warfare unassisted by a system willing to ship his remains back home in a b...

Ferris Wheel is an unexpected play in that it seems too simple on the surface, but when you sit to analyze it, more things become evident about the characters, their background and the lives they lead: all this in the space of 10-15 pages. One could say this is a short story disguised as a play. The plot is basic, the dialogue is uncomplicated, the setting minimalist. But like the surface of a calm sea, what lies beneath is more than the eye can see at first glance.  So dive into the depths of this play and discover the lives that reside among the seaweed and coral reefs. This play is the new land and funfair version of ships th at pass in the night, fleeting , meeting, on their way again.

Night is a heavy book to read.  You believe you know the events that took place in WWII because you learnt more facts and dates at school than you would have liked, watched over a dozen movies related to the war that came after the one that was supposed to end all wars, visited museums and seen artefacts linked to atrocities on one side and bra v ery on the other . And yet, Night strikes deeper into the heart of readers because it balance s the m between real fiction and fictitious realit y, toying with the ir mind which is unable to grasp the horror of the book they hold before them as they read.  "How? How is this possible?" repeat s itself like a mantra as your eyes fly over the words on ea ch pa ge, so simply written , so briefly expressed, so full of pathos. Characters develop ef fortlessly, the tragedy of an entire generation un fol ds like a bloodied gauze that's left its mark on charred skin.  This book must be read. Buy it. Teach it. Share it wit...

Slightly over 2,000 words is all it takes to portray the bestiality of mankind. This is what Cynthia Ozick manages to achieve in her short story "The Shawl" set in World War II.  Putting the enormity of the Holocaust into words is too difficult a task for any author and yet in this piece, Ozick accomplishes just that. The recipe? Simply three main characters, no convoluted dialogue, events based on detached or semi-detached descriptions either from the mother's point of view or a third person narrator who blends fact with stream of consciousness, and the predominance of short, circumspect, succinct sentences.

When you read Paley's "Mother" for the first time, you think, "Okay, so why would anyone give this to students to read when there's so much more that can be squeezed out of other short pieces of writing?" Why not give them Lawrence or Joyce to help analyze 159 facets of human relationships? Slap them with some Chopin or Woolf, both of whom produced slightly longer short stories through which you'd be able to demonstrate how a short story works and get a nice discussion going about relationships to boot. Meanwhile, after reading "Mother" for the first time, the main aspect that stays with readers is an overwhelming sensation of nostalgia and sadness bordering on melancholy. Whyever would any author write something this condensed to simply express despondency over a deceased parent? Can this story be that over-simplified? And then you re-read Paley's piece (because you have to give students some information on it so they don...