EnglishShortStoryAuthors Flashcards
facts of importance for each author
James Agee
father died in a car crash when he was young; had alcohol, smoking, and bisexuality issues; died in a taxi cab; most of his works are somewhat autobiographical; famous for “Father Flye”
James Baldwin
born in Harlem; never knew his biological father; was religious; bisexual; learned from Henry James; loved Dickens; was denied entrance to a restaurant because of his race; moved to Paris over racism; famous for “Go Tell It on the Mountain” and “Sonny’s Blues”
John Cheever
fan of the Red Sox; mother opened a gift shop; published “Expelled” at 18; struggled with bisexuality and alcoholism; friends with John Updike; famous for Wapshot series and “Falconer”; writing known as Cheeveresque; wrote about middle class and criminality
Anton Chekhov
“Father of the Modern Drama”; famous playwright; raised in Russia; had tuberculosis; drank a glass of champagne before he died; writings lack plots, but focus on imagery and detail; plays “Three Sisters”, “The Cherry Orchard”, “Uncle Vanya”, and “The Seagull”; visited convict island and wrote “Sakhalin”; works can be broken down into Humorous Era, Serious Era, and Mature Era; themes are isolation, contrast, weakness, and absurdity
Charles Dickens
limited education; expressed his opinions; “A Tale of Two Cities”, “Great Expectations”, “A Christmas Carol”, “Oliver Twist”, wrote about society; used imagery and symbols
William Faulkner
Caroline Barr was an African American servant treated like family; he and family had an issue with alcoholism; Nobel Prize in Literature; brother died in airplane crash; influenced by Phil Stone, Sherwood Anderson, and his great-grandfather; known for “Absalom, Absalom”; stories interconnected and set in Yoknapatawpha, Mississippi, a fictional county; subjects are incest, sex outside of marriage, mistreatment of African Americans, murder and suicide, religion, and guilt; often uses flashbacks; won two Pulitzer Prizes and a Nobel Prize
Ernest Hemmingway
family had issues; dependant on mother; involved in many sports; father killed himself; mother dressed him as a girl to get the twins she wanted; hated his mother and women; misogynist; ambulance driver in WWI; harmed in mortar explosion; Ring Lardner influenced him; “The Old Mand and the Sea”, “The Snows of Kilimanjaro”; used code heros, iceberg principle, and initiation stories; went insane when he believed that the FBI was following him; shot himself
James Joyce
born in Ireland; influenced by Aristotle and Thomas Aquinas, William Butler Yeats; wrote sexual letters to his wife Nora Barnacle, but her miscarriage caused issues; wrote “Ulysses”, which takes place on Bloomsday, June 16th, 1904; famous for “Finnegan’s Wake”; known for Joycean Epiphanies that reveal characters and stream of conciousness; created new words
Franz Kafka
born in Bohemia; forced to sleep outside when he asked for water; had a poor relation with his father; low self-esteem; had trouble making friends; worked in WAIIKB; befriended Max Brod, who published Kafka’s works after his death against his will; had tuberculosis; famous for “The Metamorphosis” and “The Trial”; writing is described as Kafkaesque (surreal, absurd, at mercy of bizarre logic)
Jamaica Kincaid
originally Elaine Potter Richardson; born in Antigua; given a dictionary; had a poor relation with her mother and a lack of trust; left home for New York; famous for “Girl” and “Lucy”; wrote about her mother in most of her stories; big fan of “Jane Eyre”; currently alive
Rudyard Kipling
born in India; was left with foster parent “Aunty Rosa” who beat and abused him; friends with Theodore Roosevelt; had guilt because he lied to get his son into war and he died; never found his son’s body; wrote “The Gardener” about travels; influenced by Buddhism and Jataka Tales of India;published a series of children’s stories called “Just so Stories” (written to his daughter who died); famous for “The Jungle Book”, If poem; used anthropomorphism; first Englishman to win Nobel Prize in literature and the youngest
Ursula LeGuin
began writing at age 5; first rejection letter at age 11; finally paid for a story at 32; feminist; Taoist influences; famous for “Earthsea” series and other soft science fiction (focused on society, not the technology)
Guy de Maupassant
grew up in Normandy; parents separated when he was 11; contracted syphilis; influenced by Gustave Flaubert, his mentor; wrote about prostitution, fear, and betrayal; known as the “Father of the Modern Short Story”; only wrote for 10 years; died at the age of 42
Vladimir Nabokov
born Russia to a rich, political family; brother died in the Holocaust; loved butterflies (Nabokov’s Wood Nymph); went under the name V. Sirin; first novel “Mary”; most famous novel “Lolita”; taoism
Tim O’Brien
loved baseball and magic; had trouble with his alcoholic father; wrote “Timmy of the Little League” after reading “Larry of the Little League”; was a Vietnam War veteran; famous for “The Things They Carried” and “If I Die in a Combat zone, Box Me Up and Ship Me Home”
