A World of Fiction. Twenty timeless short stories

Description

Berkeley. — 312 pages.Exercises to every story: First Reading. Thinking About the Story. Understanding the Plot. Second Reading. Exploring Themes. Analyzing the Author's Style. Judging for Yourself. Making Connections. Debate.Contents:Preface. How to Use This Book.Husbands, Wives, and Lovers.Can-can by Arturo Vivante. A husband arranges a secret meeting with a woman and is surprised by the outcome. Literary Elements: Irony, Symbol. Language Elements: Gerunds and Present Participles, Short Expressions Using And, Definitions.The Story of an Hour by Kate Chopin. A wife has a startling reaction to the news of her husband’s death. Literary Elements: Epiphany, Metaphor and Simile, Personification. Language Elements: Suffixes, Prepositions.Epicac by Kurt Vonnegut. A young mathematician uses unorthodox methods to win a woman’s heart. Literary Elements: Personification, Colloquialism and Humor. Language Elements: Lie/Lay, Two-Word Verbs, Idioms Containing Body Parts.The Legacy by Virginia Woolf. When a well-known politician’s wife dies, her husband finds that she has left him an unusual legacy. Literary Element: Point of View. Language Element: Adjectives Describing Character.The Kugelmass by Woody Allen. A New York professor has his deepest wish granted, after which his life takes an unexpected turn. Literary Elements: Dialogue, Characterization: Flat Characters, Anachronism and Humor. Language Elements: Verbs that Introduce Dialogue, Idioms.An Intruder by Nadine Gordimer. A home is invaded under mysterious circumstances, an event which changes the lives of its occupants. Literary Elements: Imagery: Simile and Metaphor. Language Elements: Adjective Clauses, Adjectives in Context.Parent and Child.Power by Tobias Wolff. A boy and his father bond in an unexpected way. Literary Elements: Repetition and Alliteration. Language Elements: Participial Phrases, Dangling Modifiers, Sentence Fragments, Alliteration, Prepositions.Mother by Grace Paley. Years after her death, a mother is remembered by her child. Literary Element: Flashback. Language Elements: Past Tenses, Synonyms.A Short Digest of a Long Novel by Budd Schulherg. A father watches helplessly as his young daughter learns about betrayal. Literary Elements: Imagery: Simile and Metaphor. Language Elements: Prefixes, Similes and Metaphors, Word Sets.lThe Rocking-Horse Winner by D. H. Lawrence. A young boy is determined to solve his mother’s financial problems. The method he chooses defies human logic and is ultimately dangerous. Literary Elements: Symbol, Fable. Language Elements: Proverbs, Idioms.The Boarding House by James Joyce. A domineering mother watches her daughter flirt with a young man and plots their future. Literary Elements: Tone: Irony and Humor, Imagery. Adjectives, Oxymorons. Language Elements: Oxymorons, Adjectives, Antonyms, Idioms.My Oedipus Complex by Frank O'Connor. A small boy’s world is turned upside down when his father returns home from the war. Literary Element: Humorous Effects. Language Elements: Denotation and Connotation, Idioms.Loneliness and Alienation.The Model by Bernard Malamud. An old man asks an agency to send him a model so that he can revive his painting skills, but the sitting does not go as planned. Literary Element: Inference. Language Elements: Euphemism, Using About in Different Ways, Expressions with Two Meanings.Disappearing by Monica Wood. Her obsession with swimming radically changes the life of a severely overweight woman. Literary Elements: Ellipsis, Imagery. Language Elements: Vocabulary, Definitions.Miss Brill by Katherine Mansfield. A lonely woman enjoys her Sunday afternoon outings to the park until her encounter with a thoughtless young couple. Literary Elements: Synecdoche, Simile. Language Elements: Verbs of Movement, Adjectives.Teenage Wasteland by Anne Tyler. A teenage boy withdraws from his family and comes under the influence of an unconventional tutor whose methods have questionable results. Literary Elements: Point of View: Third-Person Narration, Inference. Language Elements: Conditionals, Idioms.Social Change and Injustice.Like a Winding Sheet by Ann Petry. The accumulated stress o f living in a racist society takes a terrible toll on a factory worker. Literary Elements: Colloquialism and Dialect, Imagery. Language Elements: Adverbial Clauses, Synonyms.The Lily-White Boys by William Maxwell. A couple receives an unpleasant surprise when they return home after a party on Christmas Day Literary Elements: Allusion and Connotation, Setting and Atmosphere. Language Elements: Appositives, Placement of the Subject, Irregular Verbs.The Carbird Seat by James Thurber. A head filing clerk whose jo b is threatened takes drastic and ingenious measures to protect himself. Literary Elements: Understatement and Humor. Language Elements: Noun Clauses, Two-Word Verbs, Expressions Using Color, Legal Expressions.Everyday Use by Alice Walker. Family tensions come to a head in a dispute over the ownership of some quilts. Literary Elements: Characterization: Round Characters, Point of View: First-Person Narration. Language Elements: Prepositional Phrases, Verbs of Movement, Two-Word Verbs, Used To Explanation of Literary Terms.