A public dialogue about belief — one essay at a time. The Book Spoiler for the book - MARLEY AND ME. SPOILER: sent in by Annie.
The book starts out with John Grogan reminiscing about his childhood dog. This dog seemed perfect in every way and helped influence John to get another dog later on . . . John and Jenny Grogan are a newly married couple. They are both reporters and have recently bought a small house in Florida. One day Jenny becomes depressed that she can’t keep their house plants alive and decides that they should get a dog in order for her to prepare for taking care of children. After they find a good breeder, they choose the most rambunctious puppy of the litter. They take very good care of their new pet and learn, a little too late, that they may have made a mistake.
John and Jenny soon start a family and Marley seems to fit right in. They are soon a family with three children. One day Marley’s stomach twists again and John is forced to have him put to sleep. John takes a page or two to explain what Marley meant to him. Google. Regret. By Kate Chopin MAMZELLE AURLIE possessed a good strong figure, ruddy cheeks, hair that was changing from brown to gray, and a determined eye.
She wore a man's hat about the farm, and an old blue army overcoat when it was cold, and sometimes top-boots. Mamzelle Aurlie had never thought of marrying. She had never been in love. At the age of twenty she had received a proposal, which she had promptly declined, and at the age of fifty she had not yet lived to regret it. An Occurance at Owl Creek Bridge. By Ambrose Bierce Set during the American Civil War, "An Occurrence at Owl Creek" is Bierce's most famous short story.
It was first published in the San Francisco Examiner in 1890. It then appeared in Bierce's 1891 collection "Tales of Soldiers and Civilians. " A man stood upon a railroad bridge in northern Alabama, looking down into the swift water twenty feet below. The man's hands were behind his back, the wrists bound with a cord. The man who was engaged in being hanged was apparently about thirty-five years of age. The preparations being complete, the two private soldiers stepped aside and each drew away the plank upon which he had been standing. The Necklace. By Guy de Maupassant The girl was one of those pretty and charming young creatures who sometimes are born, as if by a slip of fate, into a family of clerks.
She had no dowry, no expectations, no way of being known, understood, loved, married by any rich and distinguished man; so she let herself be married to a little clerk of the Ministry of Public Instruction. She dressed plainly because she could not dress well, but she was unhappy as if she had really fallen from a higher station; since with women there is neither caste nor rank, for beauty, grace and charm take the place of family and birth.
Natural ingenuity, instinct for what is elegant, a supple mind are their sole hierarchy, and often make of women of the people the equals of the very greatest ladies. Mathilde suffered ceaselessly, feeling herself born to enjoy all delicacies and all luxuries. The Legend of Sleepy Hollow. By Washington Irving Found among the papers of the late Diedrech Knickerbocker.
A pleasing land of drowsy head it was, Of dreams that wave before the half-shut eye; And of gay castles in the clouds that pass, Forever flushing round a summer sky. The Lottery. By Shirley Jackson Shirley Jackson's short story The Lottery was published in 1948 and is not in the public domain.
Accordingly, we are prohibited from presenting the full text here as part of our short story collections, but here is a short summary of the story, followed by some commentary and explanations. It is important to have some historical context to understand this story and the negative reaction that it generated when it was published in the June 26, 1948 issue of The New Yorker. The setting for the story, a village gathering, wasn't a fictional creation in rural America during the summer this story was published. Rural community leaders often organized summertime gatherings to draw people together in town centers to socialize and hopefully frequent some of the business establishments.