Short Story The sudden, severe storm caught me totally unaware. I was walking down Peppers Road when the dark clouds started to build. I looked around as I huddled under a large, dead oak tree which offered me little or no protection from the razor-sharp rain. Almost all of the houses on this abandoned street were too badly damaged for me to take shelter in, except for one. The house loomed impressive and morbid in the greenish-black sky. A flash of lightning briefly illuminated the house and I saw that the windows were broken, but the structure seemed sound. I started to think what I should do; my options were to either stay under this great dead oak tree risking getting hit by lightning or should I go into the old house, not knowing who, or what, might be in there. My answer however was about to be decided for me when a flash of lightning hit the tree and a scent of scorched bark filled the air. I dashed across the barren street with not a person in sight and continued through the rusted and half decayed side gate which lead to a small path to the front door, once I reached the front door, I gradually opened it, it’s creak echoed by the huge empty house. What was that I thought, my heart in my mouth. I slowly turned around. I didn't see anyone, but that didn't mean that there couldn't be someone else in the house with me. It was a large house. I examined the inside of the grand hallway, some of the floorboards where missing, there was holes in the walls and everything I done was amplified. I hesitated before I went into the living room. My cigarette lighter was my best friend at the moment, showed off ancient painti... ... middle of paper ... ... highlighted a wide mouth, glowing canines, a nose, red curly hair and stern eyebrows. The man's eyes were open and staring at me. Suddenly, the faint, choking smell of wood smoke reached my nose. I felt something burning me I quickly pushed the box away and cried out. The Fire felt like it was licking at me. I backed up against the far wall; the flames had already engulfed the box. As a second flash of lightning suddenly blinding me. I Opened my eyes to see that the bottom half of the room now in flames, I made my way to the broken window and used the old trench coat to break the remainder of the razor-sharp glass. The fierce flames were approaching me rapidly, I didn’t know what to do but in the distance I could hear the wail of a siren cut through the crackle of the burning house, would they reach me in time...
sat down to rest and then heard sirens in the distance. We saw a blue and white
I escaped and rushed downstairs. I took refuge in the courtyard belonging to the house which I
it, but it carried on towards me, until it was close enough for me to
I saw the only window in whole base jumped up and kicked it in. To my left boots coming down the hallwa...
"And then I woke up."Thus goes the kind of "trick ending" that every first year writing student is told to avoid, a mark of cheap theatrics and poor craftsmanship.Historically, this kind of ending is often associated with Guy de Maupassant, the prolific French writer of the 19th century, or his 20th century American heir apparent, O. Henry (William S. Porter).In this well researched and at moments insightful book, Richard Fusco argues that Maupassant's bad rap as first and foremost the inventor and disseminator of the "trick ending" is undeserved.What Fusco feels Maupassant does deserve is recognition as perhaps the single most important influence on American short story writers of the late 19th and early 20th century, particularly Ambrose Bierce, Kate Chopin, Henry James, and of course O. Henry.However, even as Fusco's readings of these writers are laudable in their thoroughness (with the exception of his treatment of O. Henry), his overall argument seems finally too dependent on an understanding of "trick ending" which does not make necessary distinctions, and is therefore superficial enough to accommodate nearly any writer one cares to name.
thing, with all of that noise. I lit another candle to carry with me downstairs, and opened up my
Have you ever dreamt of your dream house? Have you ever wanted to invest in the stock market? Have you ever dreamt of winning a large sum of money in a short time? If so, I strongly advise you to read the short story ‘Paper’. In the story, Tay Soon and his wife dreamt of owning a big house so they tried their best to collect their money to buy it. As the stock market was growing interest at that time, they decided to invest some money in the market so as to pay their house. Luckily, they won the money for their house in the market. However, they were so greedy that they continued investing in the market. The market crash came and they lost all their money. Because Tay Soon could not accept it, he went mad. Finally, the madness drove him to death and his mother decided to build a paper house which he had dreamt before. In ‘Paper’, Catherine Lim uses irony to admonish people not to be greedy; otherwise, a person may lose his life and family.
It was about one-thirty in the morning in the town of Homestead Michigan. The almost florescent light of the moon bouncing off the fresh puddles that covered the ground. The grass and trees were covered in a thin layer of water causing every little beam of light to reflect back up. Anyone who may have been outside at this time would have without double, smelled the mix of fresh dirt and night crawlers. As the moonlight started to fade away through the cloud cover, three buses made there way through the streets and parked in front of HHS, the local high school.
There was a girl named Kandy, she was 15 years old. Her life was extremely boring, all she ever did was go to school, go on her computer, eat and sleep. She spent all summer on her computer. She was really good with HTML and spent her free time making web sites. Kandy didn't have many friends and rarely talked to guys because she was shy and unconfident about her looks. That's why she went into chat rooms. She made a web site with pictures of herself on it and told people in chat rooms to go there. A lot of people would tell her how pretty she was and some would say she was ugly. That made her feel awful. When anyone would say anything nice to her, she wouldn't believe them and think that they were just making fun of her. She only had one real friend that she could talk to, her name was Ang.
The story of an hour "The story of an hour" has many themes, but mostly shows one main theme, which is dysfunctional marriage. Women in the 19th century were prisoners of their husbands. Life was male dominated. Women were expected to stay at home to cook and raise the children. Not many women had jobs at that time, and even the ones who did, they were paid less than men were.
I felt shocked and a huge amount of anger mounting up inside me. I walked
I knelt down at the base of the bonfire, and looked at the matches I
flames. That was the closest I ever came to playing with fire. I used to get so
The traditional short story is a genre of a prose. It is a fiction work that presents a world in the moment of an unexpected change. The traditional short story obeys some rules, such as the unexpected change and major events with detail. The modern short story is a revolution which is based on the traditional short story. In other words, if the traditional short story is in the first floor, the modern short story is in the second floor. Therefore, the modern short story still obeys some rules that the traditional short story obeys, and breaks some rules that the traditional short story obeys. One rule that the modern short story still uses is the unexpected change. The rules broken by the modern short story are that the major events are not detailed, and that the border between the real world and the fiction world. This paper first talks about the unexcepted change and uses the examples of “Eveline” and “The Open Window.” Then, this paper talks about major events with detail, and uses the examples of “Lottery,” “The Open Window” and “Hills Like White Elephants.” Finally, this paper talks about the meta-literary and the border between the real world and the fiction