In my early high school years, before we were forced to read full blown novels and write research papers, my English teachers definitely had a lot of flexibility when it came to what they wanted to teach us. Although we learned a lot about the fundamentals of language and grammar, and read too many poems (in my opinion), we definitely spent a big portion of the time reading short stories. While talking to my friends about some of our favorite ones we read in high school, we all came to the conclusion that some of them were pretty weird too. So after looking back and examining some of these stories a little closer than I did when I read them in high school, here are my reviews of them now.
1. Dark They Were, and Golden-Eyed by Ray Bradbury
Set in a post apocalyptic time where there seems to be no other option than to leave Earth, a man and his family arrive on Mars to start a new life along with a whole colony of people. The tone of this story from the very beginning was low-key creepy, but it didn’t feel as dangerous as other stories in the sci-fi genre about other planets and the possibility of aliens. Everyone basically becomes really lazy after all hopes of returning to Earth are gone, except for the main character who is determined to start building a rocket that will ‘only’ take him 30 years to do.
The people there start eating the various crops they find on Martian soil and slowly start changing physically. Eventually, everyone gives up, even the persistent main character, and you think the story is over. But PLOT TWIST (the first plot twist I ever read I’m pretty sure), 5 years later people come to Mars from Earth after the war is officially over to get the settlers but they’re all gone. They only find MARTIANS there, who seem FRIENDLY, but it’s really just the people they sent from Earth. *SCREAMS INTERNALLY*
2. The Ransom of Red Chief by O. Henry
Sam and Bill are your typical team of criminal idiots that reminded me too much of the robbers that tried to get in Kevin’s house in Home Alone. They need money, so they have the genius idea of kidnapping the kid of a town official and holding him for ransom. Little do they know that the kid they’re kidnapping has a very active imagination, is very aggressive, and doesn’t mind their company at all.
He eventually breaks his abductors’ wills and forces them to draft their ransom note early, requesting money for the return of the boy. But it seems the boy (Red Chief’s) father already knows how much of a nuisance he is because he then gives them the counter offer taking the boy back if they pay him. Although this scenario is very unrealistic, it does a good job of portraying irony and the ending definitely made me laugh.
3. The Monkey’s Paw by W.W. Jacobs
This short story is your classic “be careful what you wish for” tale with a more ominous twist. The monkey’s paw is a magical paw that has the ability to grant someone three wishes but does so with some kind of traumatic catch. Per usual, the main family in the story is warned not to make the wishes because they will have bad consequences, but of course, the idiots do it anyways and the action unfolds. The first wish indirectly causes the death of the son in the story and the parents are SHOOK, to say the least.
Instead of just getting rid of the paw, like normal people would do, the mother decides that one tragedy just wasn’t enough and wishes her dead son back to life. It’s not until later that night that they get a knock on the door, which might be their dead son, but instead of answering it to see, the mom uses the last wish to send the son away. Although this story was quite frustrating and sad, it made me think about if I had the monkey’s paw, would I make the same mistakes too?
4. Lamb to the Slaughter by Roald Dahl
This short story is simply a work of genius. Even the kids in my class who didn’t like English and reading were definitely like “oh no she didn’t” and “WTF” in the end. To sum things up, the main female character in the story isn’t happy with her marriage and decides, welp if my husband isn’t going to show me attention anymore, might as well kill him. She orchestrates one of the most ingenious and seemingly effortless crime scenes I’ve ever seen or read about, all in a matter of a couple hours. She uses a frozen lamb chop and smacks the living daylights out of her husband until he is conked out and dead on the ground. Then, she goes out to the market to buy some things and ultimately forms an alibi during which the crime takes place.
Some time passes and she eventually returns back home to her dead husband and reports the crime to the police. When they arrive, she has the AUDACITY to be a “good host” and feeds the lamb chops AKA the MURDER WEAPON to the police after they investigate. They even say something to the effect of, “the murder weapon could be right under our nose” and at that point I had come to peace with the fact that this lady was going to get away with what she did.
5. Hallucination by Isaac Asimov
To this day, this short story is by far the trippiest thing I ever read in high school. It takes place in outer space on Energy Planet, where the main character is a 15 year old boy who has been recruited by engineers to help try to harness energy from a neutron star. In their attempts to do so, mostly all of the people who went in the dome have been experiencing “hallucinations” that are being caused by intraterrestrial insectoids.
This short story manages to tie in the typical sci-fi genre with a twist of cognitive brain science, and will leave you thinking about all the mystery that still surrounds our understanding of the brain today.
6. The Lottery by Shirley Jackson
Set up much like the “reaping” in The Hunger Games series, this short story takes place in a small town where villagers prepare for their annual ceremony called the lottery. Throughout the beginning of the story, the tone seems too calm and casual for the events that are to follow. There’s talk around the town about the lottery, and as the reader, you sort of have to piece together what the lottery actually is as the story goes on.
We eventually find out that as a part of the lottery, each family in town must step up one by one and take a white piece of paper from the box. No one can open up their paper until everyone has drawn one and only one paper has a black dot. But what does the black dot mean exactly? We find out for sure when one of the characters, Tessie, unfolds her paper and she is the winner of the lottery. I remember the ominous and strange feeling I felt when finding out what Tessie’s prize for winning was- getting stoned to death by the rest of the villagers as part of the town’s tradition.
7. The Most Dangerous Game by Richard Connell
After Rainsford, a big game hunter, falls overboard into the ocean, with his friend and yacht accidentally leaving him behind, he is forced to take refuge on a mysterious island nearby. Upon arriving on the island, he makes his way around until he eventually finds a residence that seems to be occupied by someone. He meets General Zaroff, the owner of the residence, who seems to be a hunter himself, but not just any hunter.
General Zaroff got bored with hunting animals, due to their lack of reasoning, and now hunts any lost traveler who finds their way on the island instead. This short story will keep you on the edge of your seat until the very end as Rainsford must outsmart his captor and become the winner of the most dangerous game.
