Masterpieces of short fiction

Part 1 of 2: Excavations: Poe's "The cask of Amontillado"

Hawthorne's "Goodman Brown" and lost faith

Under Gogol's "Overcoat"

Maupassant's "The necklace": real and paste

Chekhov, love, and "The lady with the dog"

James in the art studio "The real thing"

Epiphany and the modern in Joyce's "Araby"

Babel's "My first goose" : violent concision

Male initiation: Hemingway's "The killers"

Kafka's parable: "A hunger artist"

Lawrence's blue-eyed "Rocking-horse winner"

Female initiation: Mansfield's "Party". Part 2 of 2: Jackson's shocking vision in "The lottery"

O'Connor's "A good man is hard to find"

Paley on survival and "An interest in life"

The "Enormous wings" of Garcia Márquez

A new world fable: Malamud's "The Jewbird"

Baldwin's "Sonny's blues": a Harlem song

Updike's "A & P": the choice of gallantry

Kingston's warrior myth: "No name woman"

Atwood's "Happy endings" as metafiction

Gordimer's "Moment before" Apartheid fell

Carver's "Cathedral": a story that levitates

Why short fiction masterpieces?