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Body Swap Stories
Body swap stories are as ancient as story itself. Take the British folk tale The Witch-hare of Cleveland. A local witch tells some farmers where to find a hare they can hunt, but warns them not to set a black dog on it. They set a black dog on it, of course. That’s how fairytales…
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Who’s-Dead McCarthy by Kevin Barry Analysis
In the short story “Who’s-Dead McCarthy“, Irish short story writer Kevin Barry takes someone’s darkly morbid fascination with death and exaggerates it in a story-length character sketch — a man who talks about death so incessantly that people cross the road to avoid him. It’s wonderful. I think humour only ever exists in something that…
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Sucker by Carson McCullers
“Sucker” has been called Carson McCullers’ ‘apprentice story’. It is thought that the young cousin in this short story is the precursor to Bubber Kelly in The Heart Is A Lonely Hunter. Written at the age of seventeen, McCullers naturally demonstrated more sophisticated writing later on, though I believe this is still a great story…
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Zoomorphism and Chremamorphism
Both personification and anthropomorphism are types of metaphors. But what do you call it when it’s the other way round? i.e., when a human being is compared to an animal by virtue of animal characteristics?
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Mercy Watson Fights Crime by Kate diCamillo Analysis
“Mercy Watson Fights Crime” is book number three in the Mercy Watson series by Kate diCamillo, first published 2006. This series is beautifully illustrated by Chris Van Dusen. SETTING OF MERCY WATSON FIGHTS CRIME Where in America is this series set? Based only on fictional representations, this feels Southern to me. (Do Americans get that?…
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The Lumber-Room by Saki Short Story Analysis
“The Lumber-Room” by H.H. Monro (Saki) is one of the short stories from Beasts and Super-Beasts, published 1914, though it was first published in a newspaper. He died two years later in the war. Significantly for this short story, Saki was gay. There’s something very Peter Rabbit about this short story for adults. Peter Rabbit…
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Ernestine and Kit by Kevin Barry Analysis
“Ernestine and Kit” is a short story by Kevin Barry, included in Dark Lies The Island (2013). It has been made into a short film by Simon Bird if you can get a hold of it. This is black humour at its best. I was captivated with this crime story from beginning to end — the…
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Beer Trip To Llandudno by Kevin Barry Analysis
“Beer Trip To Llandudno” is the mythic journey of a group of middle-aged men, ostensibly on an ale-tasting expedition, metaphorically on a life journey towards death. This short story is included in Barry’s Dark Lies The Island collection (2012). Kevin Barry won The Sunday Times EFG Private Bank Short Story Award 2012 for this particular…
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Save The Reaper by Alice Munro Analysis
“Save The Reaper” (1998) is a short story by Alice Munro, included in the collection For The Love Of A Good Woman. This story is a re-visioned homage to Flannery O’Connor’s “A Good Man Is Hard To Find“. THE LOVE OF A GOOD WOMAN (1998) The night before reading “Save The Reaper” I happened to watch…
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A Good Man Is Hard To Find by Flannery O’Connor Short Story Analysis
“A Good Man Is Hard To Find” is a well-known short story by American writer Flannery O’Connor, published 1953. So much has already been said about this story — I will look into its structure from a plotting point of view. It’s also about time I read this story. Without reading Flannery O’Connor’s most famous…
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The She-Wolf by Saki Analysis
“The She-Wolf” is a comedic short story by Saki. The story first appeared in the Morning Post newspaper. It was later collected in the 1914 anthology Beasts and Super-Beasts. Clovis the prankster gets up to tricks. This is a twist on the transgression comedy. In order to write a story like this, the writer must embody the prankster.…
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The Love Of A Good Woman by Alice Munro Short Story Analysis
“The Love Of A Good Woman” by Alice Munro is the title story in the collection which won the Nobel Prize in Literature, 2013. It’s a long short story — about 70 pages. We might even call it a novella, though let’s just go with this: The title story of Alice Munro’s collection, The Love…
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Court In The West Eighties by Carson McCullers Analysis
Have you ever lived in close quarters with strangers? Perhaps you went out of your way not to know these people, but in the name of etiquette rather than aloofness. There’s something discomfiting about living in a stranger’s pocket. Like commuters on a packed train, we avoid each other’s gaze. Failure to know our neighbours…
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Mrs Tiggy-Winkle by Beatrix Potter Analysis
Beatrix Potter wrote Mrs. Tiggy-Winkle specifically to appeal to girls. She thought that Lucie’s feminine garb, with its emphasis on the lost clothing items (o, calamity!), would appeal to girls especially. Even today, authors and publishers are creating children’s books for the gender binary* e.g. this book will appeal to boys because X; this will…
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The Scary Kitchen in Children’s Stories
Most often, kitchens in children’s literature serve as metonyms of familial happiness, but every so often you do find a scary kitchen in which not all is well. The kitchen is the perfect place for a scary scene because it is at once close to home (in fact the hub of the home) and contains…