Americká literatura
Twain, Mark. "An Encounter with an Interviewer".
Summary
The interview is recorded as if it were a play or an actual newspaper interview: "Q" introduces the interviewer's questions, "A" the narrator's answers.
A young man connected with the "Daily...
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Twain, Mark. "On the Decay of the Art of Lying".
Subtitle
"Essay, for Discussion, Read at a Meeting of the Historical and Antiquarian Club of Hartford, and Offered for the Thirty-Dollar Prize*. Now First Published. (*Did Not Take the Prize)."
Summary
The...
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Twain, Mark. "Speech on the Babies".
Subtitle
"At the Banquet, in Chicago, Given by the Army of the Tennessee to Their First Commander, General U.S. Grant, November 1879."
Summary
The fifteenth regular toast is: "The Babies—as they comfort us in...
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Twain, Mark. "Speech on the Weather".
Subtitle
"At the New England Society's Seventy-First Annual Dinner, New York City".
Summary
The toast is: "The Oldest Inhabitant—The Weather of New England."
The Maker made everything in New England but the...
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Twain, Mark. "The Notorious Jumping Frog of Calaveras County".
Summary and Analysis
This is a tall tale, an anecdote presenting obvious fiction as serious fact. The core of the story is told by an intermediate narrator, Simon Wheeler. The first person narrator is...
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Updike, John. "Flight".
Summary
The story is set in Olinger, Pennsylvania. The main story line is set in late 1940s, though some events described reach back to 1930s and 1920s. The first-person narrator is Allen Dow, aged seventeen...
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Updike, John. "Separating".
Summary
The story is told from the point of view of Richard Maples, a middle-aged middle-class man, who is about to separate from his wife Joan. He intended to leave already at Easter, but Joan insisted that...
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Updike, John. "The Persistence of Desire."
Summary
The story is set in Pennsylvania, perhaps in late 1940s or early 1950s. Clyde Behn, a young man probably in his late twenties or early thirties, is in the waiting room of Dr Pennypacker. He is on one...
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Updike, John. "When Everyone Was Pregnant".
Summary & Analysis
The story is rooted in the consciousness of the first-person narrator, a middle-aged middle-class American, who reminisces as he travels by train to his job in the city. It is 1970s and...
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Welty, Eudora. The Optimist's Daughter.
Summary
Characters
Judge Clint McKelva (age 71): Large and strong both in body and mind. Retired. Staunch optimist.
Laurel McKelva-Hand (age 45): Judge’s only child. Childless. A textile designer. Helpful,...
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West, Nathanael. Miss Lonelyhearts.
Summary
The novella is set in New York City, some time during the Prohibition Era (1919–33). The protagonist is a middle class college-educated man of twenty-six, referred to as Miss Lonelyhearts for the...
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Wharton, Edith. "Roman Fever".
Summary
Two wealthy middle-aged American widows, Mrs Grace Ansley and Mrs Alida Slade, sit on a terrace of a Roman hotel and contemplate the Palatine. They reminisce. For their mothers the dangers of Rome were...
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Whitman, Walt. "A Woman Waits for Me".
Summary
The speaker observers that there is a complete woman waiting for him. She lacks nothing, but she would lack all if there were sex missing. He sees sex as all-including, as comprising bodies, souls,...
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Whitman, Walt. "The City Dead-House".
Summary
The first person speaker describes his idle walk and his stopping by the gate of the city dead-house. A corpse of a dead unclaimed prostitute is just being carried out on the pavement. The speaker is...
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Whitman, Walt. "There Was a Child Went Forth".
Summary
The poem describes a child's quest. The child goes forth every day and each day he merges with the first object he sees. The object then becomes a part of him and vice versa. Flowers, trees, beasts,...
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