Short Story Review – Freshman Literature – Rang
2009 – 20 stories total
Title, Author, Page #
“The Sniper” Richard
Connell, pg. 5
“The Most Dangerous
Game” Richard Connell pg.
13
“The Columber” Dino
Buzzati pg. 35
“Poison” Roald Dahl, pg. 77
“Marigolds” Eugenia W.
Collier, pg. 91
from “Black Boy” Richard
Wright, pg. 105
“Thank You Ma’am”
Langston Hughes, pg. 120
“Harrison Bergeron” Kurt
Vonnegut, pg. 133
“A Man Called Horse”
Dorothy M. Johnson pg.
167
“The Gift of the Magi” O.
Henry pg. 202
“Snow” Julia Alvarez pg.
215
“The Necklace” Guy de
Maupassant pg. 221
NOTES
An Irish Republican sniper is being attacked by an enemy sniper during civil war. The main
character, whose name is never given, is shot in the arm. He has to trick the other sniper if he is to
have any chance at killing him. He does trick him – by using his hat as a decoy, dropping his rifle
over the building ledge, and dragging his arm “lifelessly” – to draw the other sniper out into the
open, where the main character successfully shoots him dead. At the end, the main character
discovers that the enemy he killed was his own brother.
Sanger Rainsford of New York is visiting South America to hunt jaguars when he falls off a ship
and swims to an abandoned island. There, he meets General Zaroff and his assistant, Ivan. Zaroff
is a master hunter and now hunts humans, because animals are too boring. He tries to hunt
Rainsford, but Rainsford successfully kills some of Zaroff’s dogs, Ivan, and eventually Zaroff.
Stefano is a young boy who is discovered by a Columber, a shark that picks his victim and is willing
to wait years and travel anywhere to eat. Knowing that the Columber has targeted him, Stefano
stays away from the sea for awhile, but eventually comes back, ignoring the Columber for years.
When he is about to die Stefano decides he should meet the Columber and die with honor. The
Columber, now very old too, tells Stefano that he never wanted to kill him, but instead give him a
magical pearl. They both die disappointed.
Timber goes to his friend Harry’s house one night to discover that Harry is in bed, scared because
he thinks he has a poisonous snake (called a krait) on his chest. They called Dr. Ganderbai, who
rushes over in the middle of the night to help. When it is discovered that the snake was, in fact,
imagined, Harry goes on a racial tirade against Dr. Ganderbai, who had done nothing wrong. The
real “poison” is Harry’s hate.
Lizabeth, 14, is growing up very poor and unhappy. At a weak moment, she decides to destroy the
only beautiful thing around her – her neighbor (Miss Lottie’s) flower garden of marigolds. When she
is caught by Miss Lottie, Lizabeth feels shame, regret and responsibility for the first time. She
points to this moment as to when she became a woman.
Autobiographical story in which the 6 year old Richard learns to fight for himself on the Memphis
streets. He is given money and asked by his mother to go shopping. After being attacked and
robbed twice, rather than comfort him, his mother gives him a stick and more money and kicks him
out of the house until he comes home with food. He beats up the gang of thieves and buys the
groceries.
Roger tries to steal the purse from Ms. Luella Bates Washington Jones. Rather than punish him,
she takes him home, cooks him dinner, cleans him up, and gives him money to buy the blue suede
shoes he was trying to steal money from her to get. He leaves at the end, barely able to say “thank
you” before she closes the door.
Futuristic story about the possible consequences if equality is taken too far. Harrison is a 14 year
old genius with good looks who is bigger, stronger, and taller (7’0) than anyone else. He, like
everyone else, has been fitted with “handicaps” to make everyone feel equal. He breaks out of
prison, but Diana Moon Glampers, the Handicapper General, shoots him. The story is told through
the perspective of George and Hazel, Harrison’s parents who are watching him on TV. “Handicaps”
include: ear pieces designed to ruin concentration, masks, weights, etc.
A Boston man travels to the West to see Native Americans and is captured by the Crows. He’s
treated like a horse, just a piece of property left naked and with little food. He moves up the social
ladder in the tribe by learning the language, killing rivals, and marrying a girl, Pretty Calf. When
Pretty Calf (and their unborn child) dies, Horse decides to stay and take care of his mother-in-law
until she dies. Then he goes back to Boston.
Ironic story in which a married couple buy each other the perfect gifts only to find out that the gifts
aren’t perfect anymore. Della sells her most prized possession (her hair) to buy Jim a gold chain for
his watch. Jim, however, sold the watch to buy Della beautiful combs for her hair. No fun on
Christmas this year.
Yolanda is a young immigrant girl in New York City that has never seen snow. She is learning
about the possibility of a nuclear attack from the Russians via missiles on Cuba and the idea of
nuclear fallout. She mistakes the snow outside of her school window for nuclear fallout one day.
Mathilde Loisel dreams for a better life. Her husband, just a clerk, is given two invitations to a very
fancy dance. She wants to go, but complains that she has nothing nice to wear. He gives her
money to buy a nice dress and encourages her to borrow jewelry from her rich friend, Madame
Forrestier. Mathilda borrows a beautiful diamond necklace, goes to the dance, and is the prettiest
girl there. She loses the necklace on her way back home, however, and she and her husband
spend the next ten years paying off creditors who loan them the money ($36,000) to buy a
replacement diamond necklace. After ten years, Mathilda sees Madam Forrestier, who doesn’t
even recognize her old friend because she is so dirty and poor. Mathilda admits the necklace was a
replacement for the one she lost. Forrestier informs Mathilda that the original was a fake and worth
only $500.
“The Cask of Amontillado”
Edgar Allen Poe pg. 233
“The Princess and the Tin
Box” James Thurber pg.
244
“American History” Judith
Ortiz Cofer pg. 291
“Train Time” D’Arcy
McNickle pg. 303
“The Scarlet Ibis” James
Hurst pg. 315
“New Directions” Maya
Angelou pg. 328
“Dip in the Pool” Roald
Dahl. Internet, not in book
“The Lottery” Shirley
Jackson.
Internet, not in book
Murder story written through the eyes of the murderer, Montresor. Montresor has been insulted by
an old friend, Fortunato and he decides he is going to kill him. Rather than shoot or stab him,
Montresor baits Fortunato into coming to his home with the promise of Amontillado, a fancy wine.
Whenever Fortunato slows down, Montresor adds that he can just as easily ask Luchesi to come
taste the wine. Fortunato hates Luchesi and so he comes willingly. Once in the cold wine vaults,
Montresor chains a half-drunk Fortunato to a wall and then builds a brick wall to enclose him to die.
Fortunato dies “bricked-in.”
Story about a very rich princess who has to choose her future husband based on which gift she
likes the most. She is given 5 gifts, each from a different prince. She is given a gold apple, diamond
nightingale, platinum jewelry box, ruby heart, and ordinary rocks. She chooses the jewelry box. At
the end, the author teases the reader who thought she might take the ordinary rocks. Money rules
the world, after-all.
Elena is a Puerto-Rican girl living in a poor part of town. She meets Eugene, a white boy, and they
like each other. On the day they are supposed to go on their first study-date, President JFK was
assassinated. She knows the news is big, but she doesn’t think not to go on the date. When she
arrives at Eugene’s door to see him, however, Eugene’s mother is shocked that she’d try to date
her son, especially considering that the President has just been shot. She is rude to Elena…
arguably racist and definitely thinks she and her son are better than Elena…
Major Miles is employed by the US Government to round up Native American children and ship
them to white schools to learn white culture. He and the government think that by taking these
children they will learn how to deal with the “new American” society and then go back to their tribes
to teach others. What they don’t realize is that these children are being ripped away from their
families, ruining their education in their own culture. Major is particularly interested in one boy,
Eneas, who he feels is full of promise. He takes Eneas, who would have rather stayed at home with
his ill and helpless grandparents.
This story is written about the author’s younger brother, William Armstrong, who has been
nicknamed “Doodle.” Doodle was not expected to live very long and ultimately he ends up dying as
a boy. He does, however, learn to talk, walk, run, swim, row a boat, and play like other young boys
for a few years. He is pushed too hard by his brother to become normal and ends up dying alone
and scared, much like the bird, a scarlet ibis, that flew into the family’s yard.
This is a story of a Mrs. Annie Johnson who is divorced, uneducated, with children, and very poor
while living in an often racist (she’s black) Arkansas in 1903. Times were tough. To make things
better she decided to cook food every day and sell it to the workers coming out of the saw mill and
cotton gin in town, miles away. With no car or tools, she managed to build her “restaurant” into a
legitimate company over the years. When life’s road got tough, she made a new path with a new
direction for herself.
William Botibol is on a cruise and decides to bet he and his wife’s life savings on an auction pool.
He believes he knows how far the ship is going to travel in 24 hours due to the fact that it is stormy.
When the storm clears and the ship is going fast the next morning though, William is desperate to
slow the ship and decides to jump overboard in an effort to slow it down. Knowing they’d be forced
to stop the boat to pick him up, he makes sure he finds someone who will see him “fall” overboard.
The woman he picks, unfortunately, is mental. She tells one person – who doesn’t believe her –
and William is left in the ocean to drown.
You don’t want to win the lottery in this town. Every “head of household” – usually males – is asked
to take a slip of paper out of a box. One of the papers out of the “black box” has a circle on it. The
family that pulls this paper then has to go through the lottery again, with one member of the family
pulling the same piece of paper with the circle. That person is then “stoned” to death, so that the
rest of the town can survive. In this case, the Hutchinson family pulled the paper, with Tessie
Hutchinson, the mother, ultimately being the one killed.