Literature is a conversation - between writers and other writers, and between writers and readers. In Literature
and Its Writers, Ann and Samuel Charters complement a rich and varied selection of stories, poems, and plays with
an unparalleled array of commentaries about that literature by the writers themselves. Such "writer talk"
inspires students to respond as it models ways for them to enter the conversation. In the sixth edition, the Charters
continue to entice students to join the conversation, with adventurous and intriguing new literary works, more
detailed coverage of literary elements, and more help with reading and writing.
Table of Contents
Introduction: Connecting with Literature
Sample Paper — Raymond Carver's "Creative Writing 101"
Reading Literature
Thinking and Writing about Literature
Part One — FICTION
What is a Short Story?
*Old Testament, The Judgment of Solomon
Grace Paley, Samuel Reading, Thinking and Writing about Short Fiction
Close Reading Short Fiction
Some Guidelines for Close Reading
Sample Close Reading —Grace Paley, Samuel
Critical Thinking about Short Fiction
Writing about Short Fiction
Sample Paper — Grace Paley's Commentary and "Samuel"
Other Resources to Help Your Writing
Sample Paper —Grace Paley's Point of View in "Samuel" Plot and Point of View
Plot
*Plot Summary
*Raymond Carver, Popular Mechanics
*Questions for Critical Thinking about Plot
*Writing about Plot
*Alasdair Gray, Pillow Talk
Point of View
*Herta Muller, Workday
*Dagoberto Gilb, Love in L.A.
*Questions for Critical Thinking about Point of View
*Writing about Point of View
*Useful Terms to Remember
Character and Setting
Character
*Roberto Bolano, Jim
*Questions for Critical Thinking about Character
*Writing about Character
Jamaica Kincaid, Girl
Setting
*Daniel Orozco, Orientation
*Questions for Critical Thinking about Setting
*Writing about Setting
Gabriel Garcia Marquez, A Very Old Man with Enormous Wings
* Useful Terms to Remember Style and Theme
Style
*David Foster Wallace, Everything is Green
*Lydia Davis, Blind Date
Voice
Tone
Irony
Symbol
*Franz Kafka, I Wish I Were a Red Indian
*Yasunari Kawabata, The Grasshopper and the Bell Cricket
*Questions for Critical Thinking about Style
*Writing about Style
Theme
Interpreting the Theme of a Story
*Naguib Mahfouz, Half a Day
*Rosario Morales, The Day It Happened
*Questions for Critical Thinking about Theme
*Writing about Theme
*Useful Terms to Remember CONVERSATIONS ON STORIES AND STORYTELLERS
Flannery O'Connor
Good Country People
A Good Man Is Hard to Find
On Flannery O'Connor's Fiction
Flannery O'Connor
From Letters, 1954-55
Flannery O'Connor
Writing Short Stories
Flannery O'Connor
The Element of Suspense in A Good Man Is Hard to Find
Sally Fitzgerald
Southern Sources of A Good Man Is Hard to Find
Edgar Allan Poe
The Cask of Amontillado
The Fall of the House of Usher
On Critical Views of Edgar Allan Poe's Short Stories
Edgar Allan Poe
The Importance of the Single Effect in a Prose Tale
D.H. Lawrence
On The Fall of the House of Usher and The Cask of Amontillado
Cleanth Brooks and Robert Penn Warren
A New Critical Reading of The Fall of the House of Usher
J. Gerald Kennedy
On The Fall of the House of Usher
David S. Reynolds
Poe�s Art of Transformation in The Cask of Amontillado
*Writing about Flannery O�Connor and Edgar Allan Poe STORIES AND STORYTELLERS
Sherman Alexie
The Lone Ranger and Tonto Fistfight in Heaven
COMMENTARY: Sherman Alexie, Superman and Me
*Dorothy Allison
Jason Who Will Be Famous
Margaret Atwood
Happy Endings
James Baldwin
Sonny's Blues
COMMENTARY: James Baldwin, Autobiographical Notes
Toni Cade Bambara
The Lesson
*Jose Antonio Burciaga
La Puerta
Raymond Carver
Cathedral
COMMENTARIES: Raymond Carver, On Writing
Raymond Carver, Creative Writing 101
CONNECTION: Raymond Carver, Popular Mechanics
Anton Chekhov
The Lady with the Pet Dog
COMMENTARY: Anton Chekhov, Technique in Writing the Short Story
CONNECTION: Joyce Carol Oates, The Lady with the Pet Dog
Kate Chopin
Desiree's Baby
The Story of an Hour
COMMENTARY: Kate Chopin, How I Stumbled upon Maupassant
*Stephen Crane
The Open Boat
COMMENTARY: Stephen Crane, The Sinking of the Commodore
Junot Diaz
How to Date a Browngirl, Blackgirl, Whitegirl, or Halfie
Ralph Ellison
Battle Royal
COMMENTARY: Ralph Ellison, The Influence of Folklore on Battle Royal
William Faulkner
A Rose for Emily
COMMENTARY: William Faulkner, The Meaning of A Rose for Emily
Charlotte Perkins Gilman
The Yellow Wallpaper
COMMENTARIES: Charlotte Perkins Gilman, Undergoing the Cure for Nervous Prostration
Sandra M. Gilbert and Susan Gubar, A Feminist Reading of Gilman's The Yellow Wallpaper
Susan Glaspell
A Jury of Her Peers
COMMENTARIES: Elaine Showalter, On Glaspell's A Jury of Her Peers
CONNECTIONS:
Susan Glaspell,
Trifles
Lynn Nottage, POOF!
Nathaniel Hawthorne
Young Goodman Brown
COMMENTARY: Herman Melville, Blackness in Hawthorne's Young Goodman Brown
CONNECTION, Edgar Allan Poe, The Importance of the Single Effect in a Prose Tale
Ernest Hemingway
Hills Like White Elephants
Zora Neale Hurston
*Sweat
COMMENTARY: Zora Neale Hurston, How it Feels to Be Colored Me
CONNECTION, Alice Walker, Zora Neale Hurston: A Cautionary Tale and a Partisan View
Shirley Jackson
The Lottery
COMMENTARY: Shirley Jackson, The Morning of June 28, 1948, and The Lottery
Sarah Orne Jewett
*A White Heron
Ha Jin
*Saboteur
James Joyce
Araby
CONNECTION: John Updike, A&P
Franz Kafka
A Hunger Artist
R. Crumb and David Zane Mairowitz, A Hunger Artist
The Metamorphosis
COMMENTARY: Gustav Janouch, Kafka's View of The Metamorphosis
CONNECTION: Franz Kafka, I Wish I Were a Red Indian
D.H. Lawrence
The Rocking-Horse Winner
CONNECTION: D.H. Lawrence, On Poe's The Fall of the House of Usher and The Cask of Amontillado
Jack London
To Build a Fire
Guy de Maupassant
The Necklace
CONNECTION: Kate Chopin, How I Stumbled on Maupassant
Herman Melville
Bartleby, the Scrivener
CONNECTION: Herman Melville, Blackness in Hawthorne's Young Goodman Brown
Lorrie Moore
How to Become a Writer
Joyce Carol Oates
The Lady with the Pet Dog
Where Are You Going, Where Have You Been?
COMMENTARY: Joyce Carol Oates, Smooth Talk: Short Story Into Film
CONNECTION: Anton Chekhov, The Lady with the Pet Dog
Tim O'Brien
The Things They Carried
COMMENTARY: Bobbie Ann Mason, On Tim O'Brien's The Things They Carried
Tillie Olsen
I Stand Here Ironing
ZZ Packer
Brownies
Grace Paley
*A Conversation with My Father
COMMENTARY: Paley, A Conversation with Ann Charters
CONNECTION: Grace Paley, Samuel
Luigi Pirandello
*War
CONNECTION: Luigi Pirandello, Six Characters in Search of an Author
Marjane Satrapi
*From Persepolis: The Veil
*COMMENTARY: Sydney Plum, Reading The Veil by Marjane Satrapi
Leslie Marmon Silko
Yellow Woman
COMMENTARY: Paula Gunn Allen, Whirlwind Man Steals Yellow Woman
John Steinbeck
The Chrysanthemums
Amy Tan
Two Kinds
John Updike
A&P
CONNECTION: James Joyce, A&P
Kurt Vonnegut, Jr.
Harrison Bergeron
Alice Walker
Everyday Use
COMMENTARY: Alice Walker, Zora Neale Hurston: A Cautionary Tale and a Partisan View
CONNECTION: Zora Neale Hurston, Sweat
Eudora Welty
A Worn Path
COMMENTARY: Eudora Welty, Is Phoenix Jackson's Grandson Really Dead?
William Carlos Williams
The Use of Force
Tobias Wolff
Say Yes
PART TWO — POETRY
8. What is a poem?
Marianne Moore, Poetry (1935)
*Pablo Neruda, Poetry
Archibald MacLeish, Ars Poetica
Ann Menebroker, A Mere Glimpse
*Fred Voss, How Many Times Can We Follow Dante Down Into Hell?
*Victor Hernado Cruz today is a day of great joy
*Commentary: James Tate, "Like it or not we are a part of our time."
9. Reading, Thinking, and Writing about Poetry
Reading Poetry
Close Reading
Paraphrase
Guidelines for Reading Poetry
Sample Close Reading — Linda Pastan, To a Daughter Leaving Home
Critical Thinking about Poetry
Writing about Poetry
Sample Paper —A Moving Lyric: Pastan's "To a Daughter Leaving Home"
10. RHYME
Emily Dickinson, A word is dead
Alliteration
Assonance
Walt Whitman, A Farm Picture
Onomatopoeia
Rhyme
A. E. Housman, Loveliest of trees, the cherry now
*Georgia Douglas Johnson, I Want to Die While You Love me
A Range of Rhyme
Stevie Smith, Not Waving but Drowning
Connection: Anne Sexton, An Obsessive Combination of Ontological Inscape, Trickery and Love
Rhymed Poems for Further Reading
Sir Thomas Wyatt, They Flee from Me
Ben Jonson, On My First Son
Robert Herrick, To the Virgins, to Make Much of Time
*Robert Browning, A Woman's Last Word
*e. e. cummings, when God lets my body be
Theodore Roethke, My Papa's Waltz
*Anne Sexton, And One for My Dame
*Dana Gioia, Summer Storm
Rhyme and Popular Songs
Lou Reed, Chelsea Girls
*Natalie Merchant, Jealousy
*Writing about Rhyme
*Useful Terms to Remember
11. POETIC METER
*Edgar Lee Masters, Petit, the Poet
Accent and Meter
*Mary Coleridge, A Clever Woman
*Ralph Waldo Emerson, from The Humble Bee
*Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, from The Song of Hiawatha
*Christina Rossetti, What are heavy? sea-sand and sorrow