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The Swimmer, By John Cheever (1964)

The Swimmer, By John Cheever (1964)

Rating: 9.3/10

I personally think these kinds of stories are what short stories should be like. Very easy to understand, direct, and clear, but also a very unusual way of unfolding the plot compared to other stories. The main character was similar to Blake from The Five-Forty-Eight, they both represent American white men during the era. The devices like alcohol, pool, and season were implemented in a very enjoyable way so that readers can follow them like a clue and reach the conclusion. What I notice from recent stories we've read is that we don't whether the main character changes or not, it's always an open ending, however, we see their environment changing as a consequence of their prior actions. Overall very amusing and I wished I had the ability to write stories like this that can closely touch the readers.

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Hunters in the Snow, By Tobias Wolff (1981)

Hunters in the Snow, By Tobias Wolff (1981) Rating: 8.5/10      I enjoyed the dark irony and dark humor shown in this story. Each character seems foolish and silly, but when you find out who they are symbolizing, it's not as funny as before. Dirty realism reveals our inner flaws and enlightens us on how stupid we look from an omniscient perspective. And this is not a figure of particular minorities, but the big trend of selfishness or individualism that is rampant in recent society. What I found interesting was the cruelty of modern society as well. In the end, we see that both Tub and Frank are actually happy, or not upset at least. We know what they've done wrong, but we see how they are just moving on to the next path, laughing, and talking among the ones who lived. I think this story felt more refreshing since unlike typical men's problems happening in the 1980s (ex. swimmer or five-forty-eight), we can see individualism in our school, college admission, and with...
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The Student, By Anton Chekhov (1894)

The Student, By Anton Chekhov (1894) Rating: 8.5/10 When I first read this story, I wasn't sure whether The Student is full of unnecessary elements that only confuse the readers or some literary devices that actually entail a message that connects the whole story. But as I read it over and over again, I found out that this piece of hard literature actually does contain deep meaning. It was fascinating to find out that the weather descriptions at the start and the end of the story show the mood. And what was even more impressive was the fact that the author implies a deep message in such normal daily events. Also, as a Christian who had heard of the Peter story since I was young, I have always taken the story as just a moral story that tells you to never lie. But in The Student, I was able to imagine different aspects of the story. Overall, I thought that these kinds of literature should be read over and over again. 
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Puppy, By George Saunders (2007)

Puppy, By George Saunders (2007) Rating: 8.5/10 I noticed that during class discussions, we mostly talked about the perspective within the story constantly shifting from Marie to Callie and back to Marie. But I actually felt the need to focus on Jimmy more than just Callie and Marie. Looking deeper into the reason why and how the story flowed in this particular way, I believe we can notice that Jimmy was the motive for Callie abandoning the dog. We can also point out that Marie's decision not to buy the dog was the cause for Callie abandoning the puppy, but if Jimmy hadn't commanded Callie, the puppy never had to face this situation at the first place. Also, Jimmy was forcing others to accept his weird logic that "killing an animal is the only way to get rid of them". I thought that the author was not only trying to express not only the two different style of parenting shown by Marie and Callie, but how they are also influenced by other social elements. One was povert...
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