Short Story Essay Examples

It’s such a cold night. The air is still and freezing and the streetlight provides no warmth, simply a harsh pool of sterile light. Underneath the light she’s huddled, sucking as much heat as she can out of her only cigarette. Her hands shake as she brings it up to her pale lips, takes one […]

In Charlotte Perkins Gilman’s short story ‘The Yellow Wallpaper’, we are prompted to consider the relationship between John and the female speaker. The speaker feels compelled to write down her thoughts and emotions, but John considers her writing to be ‘absurd’. This raises questions about why writing is important to the speaker and whether the […]

It was Friday, the sun was blazing, and the sky was blue as Joe walked into the deserted theme park but little did he know of the dangers that lay ahead. Joe ran ahead of his family but finally coming to an abrupt stop along side the isle, which was listed pirates in big bold […]

The first gothic short story was written by Horace Walpole in 1765. The first gothic short story was called “the caste log Otranto”; from this the whole gothic short story tradition began when readers found this novel to be electrifying, original, thrilling and suspenseful. Gothic short stories are based on the supernatural, and its medieval […]

“Nothing to extravagant, no straightforward endings” this is how Susan Hill, the author of ‘The Woman In Black’ describes a perfect ghost story. Her own advice obviously paid off, as her famous novel was turned into a West End production at the Fortune Theatre, London and has been running for a long fourteen years. I […]

Set in the mid 19th century, “The signal man” takes place. The Signal Man is primarily situated near a railway tunnel, where the main character lives to facilitate train passage. Most of the story unfolds at night, and I felt an eerie aura while reading it. The ambiance was tense, and there was a crucial […]

Short stories were once considered inferior to novels until the 19th century, despite their existence for centuries. However, shifts in cultural, political, and social dynamics during this era led to an increased popularity of short stories, resulting in them being recognized as equal to poetry, plays, and novels. In Northern Europe, the industrial revolution brought […]

The genre of “Tickets please” is a short, fictional story with a primary purpose of entertaining an adult audience. The outline of the story is set in the Midlands in war time (World War 1) and concentrates on the lives of young girls who are short of eligible young men; the men having gone off […]

Although ‘The Son’s Veto’ and ‘Samphire’ have distinct storylines and endings, they share similarities in their depiction of the female leads. Both portray the women as delicate, exposed, and troubled by uncertainty about themselves, making them central to their individual narratives. When comparing the two women in “Samphire,” it’s clear that they share many similarities. […]

Hardy portrays women in various ways in The Withered Arm, reflecting the societal norms of early Victorian England. A woman’s beauty, family status, and breeding determined the wealth and power of her husband. The story is set in a rural English West Country area around 1850 when women had to endure rough working conditions and […]

‘The Withered Arm’ is a short story about the supernatural, based in the rural landscape of eighteenth century England. Thomas Hardy, the author, creates various atmospheres and settings by using a number of very effective techniques and also, by his general use of language. Hardy focuses chiefly on imagery, in particular the use of light […]

Having studied ‘At Castle Boterel’, a short poem written by Thomas Hardy in the early twentieth century, and ‘The Melancholy Hussar of the German Legion’, a short story written by him in the late nineteenth century, it appears that Hardy is interested in the ideas of love, time and human mortality. Hardy writes about his […]

In a previous employment opportunity, I worked as a housekeeper for the affluent Goldwell family, who had two mischievous and entitled ten-year-old twins. The Goldwell family resided in a sprawling, costly farmhouse located in Wiltshire. Unfortunately, I was tasked with managing the farm alongside Joe, who was a speech-impaired and slow-witted giant. Despite his kind […]

My poor husband has passed from me. I am in great sadness and in a state of terrible worry and mourning. We had been married for less than 3 years and it has come to an abrupt end. It should not have been like this but life had rapidly ground him away after debt, worry, […]

If you have made all the mistakes in your relationship and realize that you have one final opportunity to make things right, it can be disheartening when you unintentionally let that chance slip away. It will cause pain, leading to anger and frustration, and you will protest its unfairness. However, you must remember that not […]

Short stories have been written for hundreds of years, although it was not until the nineteenth century that the short story became a popular genre in its own right. Many authors began their careers writing short stories in magazines and journals. (In fact literacy rates were better than ever before and were constantly improving; printing […]

I will in this essay make an analysis and interpret of the story. In the following I will comment on the characterization of the protagonist, the relationship between the protagonist and Celina, the protagonist’s error of the judgment and the significance of time and place. At first I will come with a short summary of […]

For as long as I can remember I have always wanted to devote my life to helping other people. It wasn’t until my sophomore year in high school when I started to explore the many things I could do with my life that would provide great benefits to the world around me. During a course […]

One night I was walking down the dark lonely woods when I see a park unlike any other park. Most parks are supposed to remind you of happiness, little kids playing and having the time of their young lives. Well when I thought of kids playing at this park it was like a nightmare where […]

Before Gershwin’s opera, Porgy and Bess, the interaction between blacks and whites was always controversial. With the opening of Porgy and Bess, inequalities where put onto the stage for everyone to see, forever changing the opera community, transforming the audience and reinventing what opera is and what opera should be. Gershwin’s opera was an invasion […]

Thomas Merton can be seen as an author, monk, critic of society, and religious icon throughout the world. In his autobiography, The Seven Storey Mountain, Merton explores the tradition of religion and man’s search for dialogue with God. One of the moral themes in the book is man’s loneliness. For Merton, this deep-rooted loneliness was […]

It had been two years and 4 months since it had happened, the bomb dropped on the 11th June 1999. The Murdoch family had retreated to their shelter on the same day. Jonathon Murdoch, the father, had prepared the shelter many years in advance, being of the apprehensive type. He had worked for a large […]