Part One Structure

Chapter 1 Plot

John Updike A ＆ P

Graham Greene The Destructors

Chapter 2 Character

James Joyce Araby

Eudora Welty A Worn Path

Chapter 3 Setting and Atmosphere

Flannery O'Connor Everything That Rises Must Converge

Doris Lessing The Old Chief Mshlanga

Chapter 4 Point of View

Frank O'Connor First Confession

John Cheever The Swimmer

Chapter 5 Theme

Kurt Vonnegut,Jr. Harrison Bergeron

Richard Wilbur A Game of Catch

Chapter 6 Style,Tone and Mood

Nadine Gordimer The Train from Rhodesia

Tobias Wolff In the Garden of the North American Martyrs

Chapter 7 Irony,Humor,Satire and Paradox

Shirley Jackson The Lottery

Bernard Malamud The Magic Barrel

Chapter 8 Symbol,Allegory,Fantasy and Absurdity

Ann Beattie Dwarf House

Donald Barthelme Some of Us Had Been Threatening Our Friend Colby

Part Two Interpretation

Chapter 9 Moral-Philosophical Approach

Isaac Bashevis Singer Gimpel the Fool

Kay Boyle Astronomer's Wife

Chapter 10 Historical-Biographical Approach

Ernest Hemingway Indian Camp

F. Scott Fitzgerald Babylon Revisited

Chapter 11 Formalistic Approach

James Thurber The Secret Life of Walter Mitty

Saki(H. H. Munro) The Open Window

Chapter 12 Psychological Approach

William Faulkner A Rose for Emily

E.B. White The Second Tree from the Comer

Chapter 13 Mythological-Archetypal Approach

John Steinbeck The Snake

Harlan Ellison Shatterday

Chapter 14 Sociological Approach

Kate Chopin The Story of an Hour

D. H. Lawrence The Rocking-Horse Winner

Chapter 15 Structural-Semiotic Approach

Ernest Hemingway A Very Short Story

Langston Hughes On the Road

Chapter 16 Reader-Response Approach

Gary Gildner Sleepy Time Gal

Grace Paley A Conversation with My Father

Appendixes

1．Glossary of Literary and Critical Terms

2．Referential Answers to the Questions

Bibliography