Short stories analyze

Death by scrabble analyze

Death by scrabble is a really great short story because it shows people that if you have a plan that is going to hurt someone, it will probably end up hurting you instead, like a quote I know in Egyptian that says (Who dig a hole to hurt someone else, will end up with him falling in it), this quote is really shining in this story because its talking about a guy who wants to kill his wife for no explicable reason like when he says <<I watch my wife's smug expression as she rearranges her letters. Clack, clack, clack. I hate her. If she wasn't around, I'd be doing something interesting right now. I'd be climbing Mount Kilimanjaro. I'd be starring in the latest Hollywood blockbuster. I'd be sailing the Vendee Globe on a 60-foot clipper called the New Horizons - I don't know>>, but I'd be doing something., and he keep thinking of how to kill her using the game scrabble, where he says if he get a word that have bad intentions he will kill his wife.

The guy end up discovering that the scrabble game is magical and any word u spell happen and here is where the turning point begin, so he wanted to make a word that will be able to kill his wife, but because of his intentions, he didn't have good letters in his hands to kill her, at the same time he was cheating by putting the letter B in his mouth to get a word that will make him able to kill his wife, so he do the word Quake hopping that the earthquake that is going to happen will end up killing his wife <<I play QUAKE>>, but because of his intentions his wife not knowing that the game is magical and everything written in it happens she say the word death which end up killing the guy with the bad intentions <<My wife plays DEATH for 34 points, just as the room starts to shake.>> so after playing death the grounds shake from his word and he end up swallowing the letter B and dying <<and the B that I was chewing on gets lodged in my throat. I try to cough. My face goes red, then blue. My throat swells. I draw blood clawing at my neck […] I fall to the floor. My wife just sits there, watching. >>.

The Chaser analyze

The chaser is a story about an old man giving the hero Alan Austen words of wisdom, Alan Austen went to a creepy dark place looking for a old man that make mixtures that give extraordinary effects, Alan was very nervous and scared of the old man, like when he said <<"Do you mean it is a poison?" Cried Alan, very horrified>>, and throughout the story the old man is giving him advices as riddles and codes, Alan wanted a love potion, but the old man wisely gave him words of wisdom that means the love come from within and not from a potion by warning him, examples: <<"she will want to know all you do […] every word of it">> and <<"if by any chance you should, later on, slip a little […] she will be terribly hurt, of course, but she will forgive you in the end">>.

Moments later the old man told him and warned him that the life-cleaner mixture that is for five thousand dollars and not less, because it’s the only way to get rid of the effect coming from the love potion, this was the turning point of the story because here it is the most important warning, but Alan didn't understand, afterwards he sold him the love potion for one dollar and gave him the last warning saying: <<"Then customers come back later in life. When they are better off and want more expensive things">> which means that people come back later because they don’t like the effect of the potion, and order the life-cleaner which is very expensive, but still Alan bought the love potion anyways ignoring the warnings of the old man. The moral of the story is that if you want something so much you shouldn't cheat to get it and you should not take the easy way out, you should try your best and work hard to get it.

An Uncomfortable Bed analyze

An Uncomfortable Bed is a story that shows people that suspicion on everything is never good, if you are suspicion about something you should act fast and not let it be, for example if you're suspicion take over your life like the guy in the story you won't enjoy what you do because you will always be extra cautious and waste on yourself a lot of fun and ruin the moment for you and for everybody else, of course suspicion is good but not only when it's something obvious and not on everything, like here we see how the guy ignored totally the stay with his friends by only focusing on being afraid of a prank he imagined that wasn't true, which cost him the whole day, and he was afraid to sleep, it got him paranoid and here in the story is the turning point, because he got so cautious that he started doing stupid things, even he admit it when he says : <<Then I cautiously sat down. The armchair was solid. I did not venture to get into the bed. However, time was flying; and I ended by coming to the conclusion that I was ridiculous. >>.

The ironic part is that because of his suspicion he barricade the door and placed things all over the place, that ended up on making the guy getting him tea to fall down and drop hot tea on him <<O stupor! it was broad daylight. The noise brought my friends hurrying into the apartment, and we found, sprawling over my improvised bed, the dismayed valet, who, while bringing me my morning cup of tea, had tripped over this obstacle in the middle of the floor, and fallen on his stomach, spilling, in spite of himself, my breakfast over my face.>> and of course because of this what he was afraid of all along happened to him by his own hands because of his useless suspicion.

John Mortonson's Funeral analyze

John Mortonson's Funeral is a story that gives us a glimpse of how people react to death, because in it the people were all sad that john Mortonson died and they were all crying about it and being sad like we can see in the story <<As the last notes of the hymn died away the widow ran to the coffin, cast herself upon it and sobbed hysterically. Gradually, however, she yielded to dissuasion, becoming more composed; and as the minister was in the act of leading her away her eyes sought the face of the dead beneath the glass. She threw up her arms and with a shriek fell backward insensible>> and they are all concentrating on the stupid things like how fancy his funeral is and how fancy his coffin should be and were he should be buried and all these stupid stuff <<The body rested in a fine mahogany coffin fitted with a plate of glass. All arrangements for the funeral had been so well attended to that had the deceased known he would doubtless have approved.>>.
This moment is when the story turns, the coffins falls down and break and a cat just uses the dead body for its most useful purpose, nutrients <<The coffin fell to the floor, the glass was shattered to bits by the concussion.[…] From the opening crawled John Mortonson's cat, which lazily leapt to the floor, sat up, tranquilly wiped its crimson muzzle with a forepaw, then walked with dignity from the room.>> that means if someone is dead we should not focus on the negative part about it, we should focus about the good part which is that now his in a better place where he can live peacefully, so instead of focusing on the stupid things like how fancy he should look before he die, people must pray for him to be better instead and see the bright part of life and not the dark one.

The Hero analyze

The hero is a short story that show us how bad war is and how people should be proud of their country like the grandfather in this story was German and reading the German newspaper every day and didn't want to give it up even at war time because it shows how much he love his country, he stopped it for a couple of days just cause of the war but then he continued reading it till he died like the story says << My grandfather resumed reading the German newspaper, which he read until the day he died.>> it also talk about how hard war is because everyone lose their families and their friends for a useless fight over something stupid, and we can see how much they are sad his going to go to war in the story << I'm sure my grandmother had a tear in her eye for the only son, going off to war.>> but luckily in this story the war was over before the they go to the war zone << the train slowly backed up and returned to the station. It seemed an eternity until the doors opened and the men started to file out. Someone shouted, "It's the armistice. The war is over.">>, so luckily they didn't get affected, but the story still showed us how hard it is to see your last son going to war with a low chance of coming back alive.

The moral of this story is that war is useless and how people feel while seeing their only sons going to their demise, also the turning point was when the boy was going to the war because then we started seeing the pain they feel losing him to the war with a very low chance of coming back.

Short stories presentation

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