Lucy's Home For Girls Raised By Wolves
The short story as a literary form has the power to convey ideas as complex and nuanced as longer-form fiction. As King (2007) notes, short stories often struggle to find an audience, despite being on the surface easier to digest. Their length makes them perfect for brief reading, but the audience seems constantly dwindling. Yet the short story medium has precisely the power to articulate everyday issues in meaningful ways, something seen in Karen Russell's St. Lucy's Home for Girls Raised by Wolves, for example.
Minus (2009), in reviewing an anthology of short stories, supports King's idea that there are still some excellent short story writers in America, if they are a dying breed. Short stories should have a fairly high energy level, moving quickly through their narrative, as compact as it is, in order to convey ideas. This should be a pinnacle of writing, then, because it demands the author to be efficient, and to write every sentence with particular punch. When a story is creative and powerful, it becomes a great short story.
Russell's story echoes the conflict experienced in bi-cultural immigrant children. The girls leave their homes of early childhood, which are closer to their birth culture, but in school they become enculturated with their new land. They progress through different stages of growth to the point where they theoretically become bicultural. Yet, the bicultural nature is illusory in...
In particular the imagery of the religious school used for enculturation can be found in Jesuit schools around the world, and was even used in North America well into the 20th century to transform people from their former culture to the modern one. The story has power precisely because it is open to multiple interpretations. King praises this work, rightly, because it has energy, context, and can be quite thought-provoking in seeking to determine its precise meaning.
The immigrant theme is common in literature today -- immigrant stories inherently have this internal, cultural identity conflict, and are therefore not only powerful but common in immigrant cultures (Wagner, 2010). People come to new countries, but if they arrive as adults they often have a strong sense of identity, and never really progress through the different stages described in the story. Their children, however, do, because they are more malleable. It can be a difficult transition, and like the narrator many people find it easier to choose one culture or another, rather than truly becoming bicultural as the Jesuits in the story suggest. The nature of biculturalism thus becomes an important idea here -- the people doing the enculturation on behalf of the dominant culture might argue…
What is Science Fiction? Nightfall (Asimov, 1941) Q1. What is different about the world of the story from the “normal” world? What elements make the world of the story seem strange and different from our own? There are a number of elements in Nightfall that establish the planet’s difference from the normal world on earth. First, it is set on another planet, in a fictional universe. This universe is lighted by several, rather
Friendship (short Story): Wrestling with myself Sierra was one of those girls everyone hated and everyone secretly wanted to be except me. I just hated her. Even the teachers gave her a wide berth and never challenged her. She'd walk through the school, a cold expression on her face, wearing the latest and most fashionable clothes. She seemed to have a sixth sense about when something suddenly was no longer trendy and had
Gimpel the Fool In Isaac Bashevis Singer's short story "Gimpel the Fool," the character of the title has been given the nickname of fool by the people in his village because of his naivety. When someone tells him a lie, he believes them and does not doubt that what they say is the very truth, no matter how many times he has been deceived in the past. In general, the majority
female body -- the sum of its parts? In short story, novel, and poetic depictions of Gillman, Brooks, and Piercy despised flower, called a yellow weed by most observers. A trapped and voiceless bodily entity, like a ghost, perhaps behind a surface of peeling yellow wallpaper. A plastic doll with yellow hair with pneumatic dimensions and candied cherry lips. These three contrasting images all have been used to characterize
Achates McNeil The use of first person narration in T. Coraghessan Boyle's short story "Achates McNeil" is profoundly important in the effectiveness of the story, and critical to the story's ultimate success. First person narration allows the reader to sympathize with the narrator's anguish, and to see the events of the story clearly through Ake's eyes. In the story, Achates, or Ake (as he calls himself) gives the reader direct access his
The novel is interspersed with instances of irony and pure sarcasm and cynicism and there is hardly a light moment in this entire story. There are various ways in which the transformation can be interpreted. But Samsa being a misfit dominates all other interpretations. Samsa lacks a much-needed sense of belonging, which is one reason, why he is unable to develop positive healthy relationships with people around him. His