All Questions
Tagged with character-analysis short-stories
16
questions
2
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0
answers
38
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Did Nina and Victor have a romantic connection or was it just built in his head?
Nabokovs Dozen, the short story 'Spring in Fialta'. The narrator is seemingly unreliable and usually the romantic parts are just his own interpretation of the event rather than her actual demeanor, ...
2
votes
1
answer
99
views
What is the significance of the ending of this short story "In the Wheels"?
The short story "In the Wheels" (available in full at that link, perhaps a 10-15 minute read) is mostly about car racing with a speculative-fiction twist, but there's a surprising (to me) ...
- 74.1k
3
votes
1
answer
188
views
What does the name "Hodel" mean?
In Isaac Bashevis Singer's short story "The Primper", Adele's real name is "Hodel":
Her two sisters and three brothers married in due time, but she, Adele - her real name was ...
- 26.1k
3
votes
0
answers
137
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"The Rocking Horse Winner" Characterization
I'm trying to analyze the characters Basset, Oscar, Hester, and Paul in D.H. Lawrence's short story "The Rocking Horse Winner", to know which ones are round characters and which ones are ...
- 183
5
votes
1
answer
185
views
Why is Jacques Kohn wearing a "father-murderer" collar?
In the description of Jacques Kohn in the beginning of Isaac Bashevis Singer's "A Friend of Kafka", he's described as wearing this:
Although he still dressed in the style of a dandy, his ...
- 26.1k
3
votes
0
answers
103
views
Katherine Anne Porter's "HE": What is He?
I recently read Katherine Anne Porter's "He", and, after reading it twice, am still left in the dark about one thing. It is said that "Rolls of fat covered Him like an overcoat", ...
2
votes
1
answer
471
views
Is either Rhoda Brook or Gertrude Lodge portrayed negatively in "The Withered Arm"?
Thomas Hardy's short story "The Withered Arm" (freely available to read online) revolves largely around two female characters, Rhoda Brook and Gertrude Lodge, the two "viewpoint" ...
- 74.1k
6
votes
1
answer
7k
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Who are the main characters of "A Study in Emerald"?
Neil Gaiman calls his "A Study in Emerald"* a Lovecraft/Sherlock Holmes fanfiction. And indeed it is exactly that: it uses the narration and story structure pretty characteristic to one from ...
- 2,110
3
votes
1
answer
184
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What did Miss Bentley see in "A Month By The Lake" by H. E. Bates?
In H. E. Bates' novella "A Month By The Lake", Miss Bentley and Miss Beaumont have to get changed in the same hut to go swimming (because most huts are occupied). Miss Bentley emerges ...
- 457
3
votes
1
answer
287
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Why are only some characters in Petrushevskaya's Hygiene given names?
HYGIENE, By Ludmilla Petrushevskaya, in There Once Lived a Woman Who Tried to Kill Her Neighbor’s Baby: Scary Fairy Tales, published this fall by
Penguin. Translated from the Russian by Keith Gessen ...
- 83
4
votes
0
answers
1k
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Was Frederick Lawley based on a real figure in British India?
The fictional character of Frederick Lawley, a prominent British figure in colonial India, is the main object of R. K. Narayan's "Lawley Road" (a short story first published in 1956 in the eponymous ...
- 74.1k
4
votes
1
answer
289
views
In Penelope Fitzgerald’s short story The Prescription, significance of "Knowledge is good, but what is the use of knowledge without honesty?"
In Penelope Fitzgerald’s short story The Prescription (1982), Dr. Mehmet Bey almost kills his 14-year-old apprentice, Alecco, by forcing him to drink a poisoned prescription after discovering the boy ...
- 318
2
votes
2
answers
1k
views
Why does Sammy feel sorry in Updike's "A&P"?
In John Updike's short story A&P, the narrator Sammy has been ogling a group of customers at the A&P store:
In walks these three girls in nothing but bathing suits. I'm in the third check-...
- 41
2
votes
0
answers
59
views
What connects the strangeness of the people and the magic of the bathroom?
I was just reading Turkish Short Stories from the October 2017 issue of Words Without Borders. In particular, the story "The Little Bathroom" by Sine Ergün (published freely online, and ...
- 74.1k
3
votes
0
answers
177
views
Who or what is the narrator of “Our Talons Can Crush Galaxies”?
I just read Brooke Bolander's short story "Our Talons Can Crush Galaxies", which has been nominated for both Hugo and Nebula Awards for Best Short Story after its publication less than a year ago (...
- 74.1k