A quote from this story reads, "I grew to resent the way my father treated his furniture like children, and his children like furniture."
What is "Old Father, Old Artificer"
100
This woman enjoys the freedom her job affords her, and she hides the truth of the nature of her "work" from her son.
What is "Night Women"
100
This story is written in second-person and emphasizes racial differences and the "best" ways of acting around people of different races.
What is "How to Date a Browngirl, Blackgirl, Whitegirl, or Halfie"
100
This story features snow as a false blanket of comfort. The last phrase of this story reads, "a vast moving screen of snow--but even now it said peace, it said remotness, it said cold, it said sleep."
What is "Silent Snow, Secret Snow"
100
In this tragic story, it is too late for a second chance.
What is "Jealous Husband Returns in Form of Parrot"
200
The narrator of this story follows the advice, "If you begin and it is not the beginning, begin again."
What is "Things You Should Know"
200
In this story, the narrator switched from practical career choice to an impractical one.
What is "How to Become a Writer"
200
This story ends with the protagonist trying, unsuccessfully, to go to sleep. He is not surprised or disappointed in this; instead he says, "I know how all my dreams end anyway."
What is "The Lone Ranger and Tonto Fistfight in Heaven"
200
This story ends with "No mention has been made of the snowplow that seemed always to be there, scraping snow off our narrow road--an artery cleared, though neither one of us could have said where the heart was."
What is "Snow"
200
These "people" are not human beings in the story, "Not Human Beings".
Who are the Palestinians on Border Patrol
300
A mother's unrealistic expectations of her daughter's achievements cause tension between them in this short story.
What is "Two Kinds"
300
The fierce pride of this woman cause her to defend her home and everything she has worked for and built up her whole married life.
Who is Delia from "Sweat"
300
This story emphasizes the idea that where you are is who you are. A quote from this story is, "When you lived in the south suburbs of Atlanta, it was easy to forget about whites."
What is "Brownies"
300
A quote from this story is, "I stuck to him like white on rice."
What is "Powder"
300
This is the name a scientist gives to a tiny woman he finds in Africa. He describes her as "black as a monkey." A photograph in the newspaper of her evokes various responses from different people ranging from revulsion, unbridled tenderness, surprise, and pity.
Who is "Little Flower"
400
In this story, a boy who displays signs of the "Oedipal Complex" is obssessed with seeking his mother's love and approval, at the expense of everything else.
What is "The Rocking-Horse Winner"
400
This story emphasizes supply-side economics (the rich are getting richer, the poor are getting poorer).
What is "Trickle Down Theory"
400
This story is modeled after Ernest Hemingway's "Hills Like White Elephants".
What is "Black Man and White Woman in Dark Green Rowboat"
400
When he was eleven years old, this author's father shot his mother and then himself.
Who is Conrad Aiken
400
This unlikely character brings good fortune to a family through his "supernatural virtue [of] patience".
Who is the angel from "A Very Old Man with Enormous Wings"
500
This story shows the struggle of a Latino trying to fit in in a white-dominated society.
What is "Barbie-Q"
500
After working many dead-end jobs, making bad business decisions, and encountering his fair share of bad luck, the narrator of this short story finds his true calling as a cook.
What is "Job History"
500
This story uses lyrical language to temper the violence in the plot, and uses the words "up" and "glow" in a repetitious and very poetic way.
What is "Blood Burning Moon"
500
This one strong point is named by the father about his son in "Powder".
What is: "You always think ahead."
500
One critic has written of the characters in this story that they are, "free from psychological conflicts, [so] they show a greater participation in what is real, the greater space that includes all spaces."