What is your all-time favorite short story?

Question

Maybe at a little bit about why you like it.
I want a cool short story to teach in a high school.

Answer 1

"nightfall" i think asimov wrote it but can't be sure. it is about a world where there are two suns. and night doesn't exist. the scientists claim that night will come, but no one believes them. then an eclispe happens and people see what is outside their world for the first time. excellent short story..

Answer 2

1. "The Canterbury Tales" is full of short stories.
Any one of these would be entertaining.
I particularly like " The Monk's Tale".

2. The Call of the Wild by : Jack London
or John Barleycorn By Jack .
John Barleycorn is not well known but
it is a good education about the evils
of too much alcohol.

3. If you want something dark, political
and thought provoking try, " Last Day
of a Condemned Man" by Victor Hugo.
It's length has it right between a short
story and a novella.


I really like John Barleycorn because it
gives an account of Jack's drinking
history starting with his early teens.
It then gives you a descriptive view
of how people become alcoholics
without realizing that the alcohol has
consumed their lives. Jack likes to
use the word dipsomania as a means
of denial for what was truly happening
to him. I think this a very good way for
any adult to engage in a conversation
about substance abuse with adolescents
in a subtle way without appearing
preachy.

I like " Last Day of a Condemned man"
because it takes you inside the mind of
man during his final hours all the way up
to his march to the gallows. Aside from
that Hugo also gives brief history and
commentary on France's death penalty.

Answer 3

I really cannot decide! I have SO many. Here are some suggestions:

~Pretty much anything by Flannery O'Connor. I especially like "Everything that Rises Must Converge" and "A Good Man is Hard to Find". Ms. O'Connor is the master with relgious symbolism and her stories are quite engaging.

~Tim O'Brien "The Things They Carried" is a great read.

~"The Open Boat" by Stephen Crane is an excellent read if you guys are studying realism.

~Hemingway has some cool shorts..."Soldiers Home" and "The End of Things" are two that stick out in my mind.

~"The Lynching of Jube Benson" by Paul Lawrence Dunbar is excellent! It will start some dialogue about right and wrong.

Good luck!

Answer 4

I've always enjoyed "The Ransom of red Chief" by O. Henry. If you're a parent, you'll appreciate how frustrated the kidnappers of young "Red Chief" rapidly grow to dislike him. The kid's a pest, they can't take it anymore, and the parents don't want him back. The story is very old, but it still works today. This is a story that the children in your class will enjoy.

It's funny that you ask this question because just last week I referenced this story for the first time since i read it in high school. While picking my 12 year old daughter up at her friend's house, I joked with the mother of my daughter's friend asking where the kidnapper's took our kids off too. Without blinking, the mother answered that she didn't know, didn't care, and that they (the kidnappers) would have to pay us to bring them back. That's when I remembered this story, and I told her about it. She laughed and said she remembered it from High school too. Check it out, and have fun with it.

Answer 5

I agree with the person who said Stephen King. A few of my favorite stories are "Word Processor of the Gods"-in the Skeleton Crew collection, "Rage" and "The Long Walk"- both in the Bachman books. (King writing under the pen name Richard Bachman).
I liked Processor because it's not your typical King type story- no real elements of horror- it's more of a science fiction story and it had a good ending.

Rage and The Long Walk tend to be more on the human psyche level- more character development- you can actually get into the characters and become attatched to them. There are, of course, elements of horror and terror, but for me, those two stories were more about the character.

Answer 6

The Happy Prince by Oscar Wilde.
It's about a statue, and all the folk in the town are proud of it.
It is covered in gold and jewels.
A bird sits on the statue, and the statue asks the bird to take his jewels to the poor families so they can buy food etc.
Eventually the statue looks tatty, and the town folk begin to hate it.
It's all about how people can hate you for the way you look.
It's very sad really.

Answer 7

There are some GREAT ones in a book I read a long time ago.. Nightmares and Dreamscapes by Stephen King. I'm not sure how highschool appropriate they are though. I have never been "scared" by anything I read...those stories were great though.

Answer 8

The Masque of the Red Death by Edgar Allen Poe.

I always loved his work because it's so expressive and discriptive. I could see the whole story clearly in my mind while reading it. This one I liked in particular I suppose because the snobs got what they deserved in the end, lol.

Answer 9

Go to:
www.bibliomania.com
You can find English short stories, fiction, dramas and poetry here.
Anyways, I like
"Button, Button,"
"Dark They Were, and Golden Eyed",
"Clearing in the Sky".

Answer 10

Happiness-guy de maupassant
love,love,love alone-v.s.naipaul