English 9
Short Stories
A short story is a little, well-polished stone in a vast quarry of fiction. As with other genres, at the foundation of the short story is a set of key literary elements-setting, character, plot, and theme-that the writer manages to introduce, develop, and display in just a few pages. A large part of a reader's enjoyment is seeing how the author lays this foundation and envisioning what it will become.
Glencoe Literature: The Reader's Choice
Of MIce and Men
They are unlikely pair; George is "small and quick and dark of face"; Lennie, a man of tremendous size, has the mind of a young child. Yet they have formed a "family," clinging together in the face of loneliness and alienation.
Laborers in California's dusty vegetable fields, they hustle work when they can, living a hand-to-mouth existence. For George and Lennie have a plan: to own an acre of land and a shack they can call their own. When they land jobs on a ranch in the Salinas Valley, the fulfillment of their dream seems to be within their grasp. But even George cannot guard Lennie from the provocation of a flirtatious woman, nor predict the consequences of Lennie's unswerving obedience to the things George taught him.
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