By Dr Oliver Tearle (Loughborough University)
What are the most important quotations in Shirley Jackson’s well-known 1948 short story ‘The Lottery’? This deeply unsettling story about a village which annually selects a blood sacrifice from its inhabitants in the hope of bringing about a good harvest is widely studied and discussed, but it deals with some big ideas and moral questions.
By Dr Oliver Tearle (Loughborough University)
‘The Swimmer’ is a 1964 short story by the American writer John Cheever (1912-82), published in his collection The Brigadier and the Golf Widow. Cheever’s best-known story, ‘The Swimmer’ is about a middle-aged married man who decides to travel home from his friends’ house one summer afternoon, swimming in the various swimming pools he encounters on his route.
By Dr Oliver Tearle (Loughborough University)
The story of Narcissus is one of the most enduringly popular, and instantly recognisable, from classical myth. The very name of Narcissus has become a kind of shorthand for self-love and self-regard.
But the actual facts of the Narcissus story are a little more complex than they first appear. Who fell in love with Narcissus, and what was her name? Or was it even a ‘she’? How did Narcissus give his name to the flower known as the ‘narcissus’ – and did he, in fact, give his name to it at all?
By Dr Oliver Tearle (Loughborough University)
‘And of Clay We Are Created’ is a short story by the Chilean writer Isabel Allende (born 1942), included in her 1989 collection The Stories of Eva Luna. In the story, a mountain avalanche causes a cataclysm which leads to thousands of deaths. The story follows the attempts of a newscaster who tries to save a thirteen-year-old girl who has become trapped in the mud.
By Dr Oliver Tearle (Loughborough University)
‘Girl’ is a short story by the Antigua-born writer Jamaica Kincaid (born 1949). In this very short story, which runs to just a couple of pages, a mother offers advice to her teenage daughter about how to behave like a proper woman. ‘Girl’ was originally published in the New Yorker in 1978 before being reprinted in Kincaid’s collection At the Bottom of the River in 1983.
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