Short Story Masterpieces

Conrad Aiken; Michael Lowes talks about impulse with his friends at a poker game, attempts to steal a razor set, gets caught, sent to jail, wife leaves him

Nelson Algren; a Polak named Bicek gets arrested for robbing a drunk man, shoots at his feet to scare him, the bullet rebounds and kills the man. Bicek, young, stupid, and bald, decides he'll die in prison.

Sherwood Anderson; child tells the story of his mother and father.

Spent ten years of his life on a chicken farm. Father and mother are bent on success, try to start a restaurant. Father decides he needs to entertain the guests, ends up making a man think he's insane. The boy attributes much of his family's problems with the egg.

John Cheever; Jack, a native of Ohio, meets Joan, (a woman from the same town) when they both move to NYC before WW2. He notices she always wears black and begins to think of her as "The Widow". She's always around an abusive man who has some addiction or fatal problem. Joan reminds Jack of the comfortable lifestyle of Ohio and he thinks of her as a gentle, victimized woman. He figures out in the end that she preys on dying men, a lot like the Grim Reaper.

John Collier; an artist moves to a French border town along the Pyrenees Mountains.

A native believes the artist is crazy, as he is sunburned, roaming through the French wilderness, and raving about the countryside. The artist offers to buy the native's cottage for 35,000 francs. The man forgets his worries about the artist being crazy and sells the cottage. The native, named Foiral, is unfamiliar with checks and cashes his in a bank. Once he gets his money, he decides that the checks are magical and tells everyone in the village about it.

The men start stealing checks from the artist and cashing them for 35,000 francs. The town's commerce increases and they all become fairly rich.

Joseph Conrad; Kayerts and Carlier, two european tradesmen stationed in Africa, deal with the trade of ivory. After being isolated for several months in the jungle, they slowly lose their morals. Makola, their African bookkeeper, initiates a trade of slaves for ivory.

The men are at first unsure of the deal, then they accept. They catch many diseases and eventually get in a fight about sugar. Kayerts accidentally shoots Carlier, then becomes desperate and hangs himself right before the the company steamboat arrives.

A.E.

Coppard;

Stephen Crane; Potter and his new bride are traveling by train from San Antonio to Yellow Sky. Potter is nervous because he did not tell the townspeople that he married. The couple is awkward and other passengers on the train regard them humorously. Back in Yellow Sky, a few people at a saloon are sitting around when a boy walks in and warns them that Scratchy Wilson is drunk and looking for a fight. The natives leave the saloon in haste, the bartender begins to board up the saloon.

A foreign drummer is unaware of the seriousness of the situation until the others tell him that Scratchy Wilson is a dangerous drunk who enjoys shooting people. The only person that will stand up to Wilson is Potter. After Wilson travels around town looking for a fight and only receives one from a dog, he goes to Potter's house and waits for him. When Potter and his new bride arrive at the house, Potter informs Wilson that he is no longer willing to fight. Wilson is shocked and walks away.

H.

L. Davis; Old Apling and Young Beech are driving unhealthy horses through the cold Oregon countryside. Apling was contracted to feed the horses, and tended grass to do so. What he thought would last them nearly two months only lasted three weeks because of the malnutrition of the horses. Instead of giving up the contract like people would expect him to, Apling decides to roam the countryside in search of someone to take care of them.

William Faulkner; The story opens with young Sartoris watching court proceedings against his father, Snopes.

Snopes is accused of burning down Harris' barn. When Sartoris is asked to testify, he lies and supports his father's defense. The family is ordered to leave town. As they are walking to the wagon that holds his family and their possessions, a child calls Snopes a barn burner and strikes Sartoris. Snopes is unmoved and orders his wife not to clean Sartoris' bloody face. They go to work on land owned by a man named de Spain.

Upon arriving, Snopes takes Sartoris up to de Spain's house and tramples the fine carpet. After being ordered from the house, a maid takes the rug to Snopes and tells him he must clean it. Snopes makes his daughter clean the rug with lye and then defaces it with a rock. After returning the rug, de Spain informs Snopes that he must pay for the rug and offer some of his crops in addition. Snopes tells him he will do no such thing. After a court orders the donation of his crops, Snopes sets about to burn down de Spain's barn.

Sartoris warns de Spain of his father's intentions, de Spain shoots Snopes, and Sartoris is left to deal with his betrayal.

F. Scott Fitzgerald; Dexter Green works as a caddy and is skiing across the snowed in golf course. He meets a young girl who wants him to be her caddy.

Upon his refusal, she throws a fit and hits her nurse with clubs. When his manager orders him to work for her, Dexter quits. He moves on to college and starts the most successful laundry chain in the Midwest. After selling the chain, he moves to NYC. We learn more about his climb to success.

.. he fell in love with Judy, became engaged to another woman named Irene, and eventually betrays Irene with Judy. Things do not work out with Judy either. Exasperated, he sells the business and enlists in the military.

After fighting in WW1, he returns to the city and discovers that Judy has married a man who cheats on her and leaves her at home to tend to the children. Dexter also learns that she has lost her beauty. Dexter mourns this loss as the final disconnection from his childhood.

Ernest Hemingway; Krebs leaves a Methodist college to fight in WW1.

After his service in the Rhine, he returns to America and discovers that most of the celebration has ended. No one will listen to his war stories and he resorts to lying. He becomes disgusted with himself and stops telling war stories all together. Kreb's mother and sisters think of him as a hero and he lays around all day. He looks at the women around town and is attracted to them but does not wish to engage in a relationship because it involves work.

Krebs starts reading about WW1 and learns about the war he fought in for the first time. His mother tells him to get a job and asks him if he loves her. He tells her no, as he is incapable of loving anyone. She is hurt and asks him to pray with her. Krebs tells her he didn't mean it but is unable to pray with her. He decides to find a job in Kansas City and goes to watch his sister Helen pitch in a baseball game.

Henry James; Peter James has taken a lifelong interest in his godson Lancelot. Lancelot is the son of Peter's friend Morgan Mallow, an unsuccessful sculptor who is married to Peter's love of his life. Lance wishes to leave Cambridge and paint in Paris. Peter and Morgan attempt to dissuade Lance of this dream, but they are unsuccessful.

Lance returns to Cambridge after a year and confides in Peter that he is not talented enough to be a successful painter. Peter attempts to shield Lance from discovering that his father is a bad sculptor but fails. Lance is eventually publicly scolded by his father for being a failure; which leads him to discover that his wife and son have always known of his mediocrity as an artist.

James Joyce; Mrs. Mooney married a man who eventually became a drunkard and tried to kill her with a butcher's knife.

She left him, took the children, and opened up a boarding house. Her daughter, Polly, became involved with a man named Bob Doran. It was known throughout the boarding house that something was going on. After forcing a confession from Polly, Mrs.

Mooney set out to scare Doran into marrying her daughter and restoring her honor.

Ring Lardner; Ben Drake is a musical writer, he lives very comfortably but does not enjoy spending the night at other people's houses. Being famous, he gets invited to a lot of overnight stays and absolutely hates them. To have a means of escape, he arranges to have several telegrams sent to him whenever he needs them, telling him of important work that cannot wait. After using these to get out of spending the night on several occasions, he decides that he will stop altogether. Eventually, he and his wife meet the Thayers, a couple that they actually like.

Drake accepts an invitation to stay with them for a week. The Thayers let the Drakes stay in their guest apartment called Liberty Hall. Drake would like to be left alone but Mrs. Thayer insists on providing him with the best of everything, which he does not want. Drake tries to escape using his telegram system but Mrs.

Thayer intercepts it. He is stuck. The end.

D.H.

Lawrence; Mabel, a horse dealer's daughter, is left with nothing to do after both of her parents die. While her brothers can escape, Mabel must either become a servant or go to live with her sister. She does not want to do either of these. She goes to trim the grass around her mother's grave; it calms her. Mabel then decides that she misses her mother so much that she will kill herself to be with her again. The story's perspective shifts to Jack, Mabel's brother's friend, who sees Mabel walking into a lake to presumably drown herself.

Jack, being a doctor with the instinct to help someone, plunges into the lake, retrieves Mabel, and resuscitates her. He takes her back to her home, undresses her, and warms her by the fire. When Mabel wakes up she asks Jack if he was the one who saved her. He confirms this, and Mabel believes that he loves her: 1) because he saved her 2) because he undressed her.

Jack did not undress her for romantic reasons, he's a doctor and is used to naked people. Mabel confronts him and says that he must love her. While Jack is enraged by this, he also loves her in a way because she is so defenseless. Until now, he has never even looked at Mabel twice.

But he decides to marry her.

Sinclair Lewis; Allan Cedar, a dentist, is very in love with a married woman named Virga Vay. Unfortunately, he is also married to a terrible woman named Bertha who emotionally abuses him. When Bertha inherits $7,000, she tells Allan that they are moving to California. Allan dreads moving to California so he decides to run away with Virga. They get a little outside of St.

Louis, then decide to kill themselves in Romeo and Juliet fashion. While reading poetry and slowly dying, Bertha and her detective cousin pull the lovers out of the car and take them back home, where she continues to bully Allan.

Katherine Mansfield; William and his wife, Isabel, disagree about spending money. He would like to buy nicer presents for their children, but Isabel is against it, because she thinks that a rich lifestyle is not right for them. The family leaves their small flat in London and move into a larger country home. Already, Isabel feels differently about money.

She makes new friends who are Bohemian and rich and decides that William is boring and poor-minded. They have a fight about it, then William leaves for work in London and sends her a letter. Isabel reads the letter to her new friends, finding that it is basically a divorce letter. She is suddenly ashamed of their marriage and her part in destroying it.

W. Somerset Maugham; Mr.

Warburton is the director of a British outpost in Borneo. He looked down on his superiors and gambled a lot of his money away when he was in England, which led to him moving to Borneo. He is happy in Borneo and created a nice world for himself. He is the only white man and has been for several years, but he is in need of an assistant. Warburton hires Cooper, who he immediately dislikes for being unruly and unlike Warburton. They have conflicts over their clothing (Warburton dresses for dinner and Cooper wore casual clothes), newspapers, and the natives.

Cooper calls Warburton a snob to his face; Cooper gets killed.

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