The Act Short Story

The choices and decisions made control our lives and build our future. Regardless of whether individuals see it or not, the choices did influence today, impact our tomorrow. Once a choice made, the actions play out, and the results convey; at that point, must choose the option to live with those outcomes. In the short story "The Father," the author, Hugh Garner utilizes character development of John Purcell to demonstrate that one's irresponsible choices made have the ability to jeopardize an essential relationship in one's life.

Lying is never easy, especially when the lie is to parents. Kurt Vonnegut Jr.’s story “The Lie” is about a boy named Eli Remenzel, who is on his way to Whitehill Academy, a school his parents want him to go to. But there is one catch, Eli knows he didn’t pass his entrance exam, so he has to go on a car ride with his parents to Whitehill with the thought looming over him. One lesson the story suggests is that people lie or hide things when they encounter a bad situation and tend to show it as well.

“Ashes” by Susan Beth Pfeffer is about a girl who is caught in a situation in which her father attempts to bribe her to do something immoral. One message suggested in this story is how misdirection and trickery can negatively affect relationships between a parent and their child.

The reason I had to sneak around behind my parents backs were because they didn’t want me to have the car I was looking to get so if I had told them anything I would have compromised my happiness. Although after I had obtained the car they were bound to find out eventually. Due to the path I choose to take it caused myself a lot of trouble on multiple fronts because due to me doing everything by myself I later found out that

After years away from home, Peter has returned as a man to help bury his father. Over the years, father and son must have had some misunderstandings. In Peter’s perspective, he viewed his father as a “humorless and severe”. Peter came to a realization that in some ways he was afraid of his father. Peter and his father being different types of people- Peter being thoughtful while his dad takes business seriously- are miscommunicating with each other

Deception surrounds daily life whether it is a lie about homework being completed or acting a different way to gain one’s approval. More times than not, deception is meant to protect someone, including another person or one’s self. In The Memory Keeper’s Daughter, written by Kim Edwards, one of the protagonists, David Henry, constructs a lie about his daughter in order to protect his family. When Norah Henry gives birth to her twin babies, David Henry discovers that his daughter, later named Phoebe, has down syndrome. Norah, sedated after enduring harsh labor pains, is kept away from the children and doesn’t get the chance to see her daughter, who was a surprise.

The glistening sun scorching my eyes bring me back to consciousness , i have only a few seconds of silence before i am overcome with an unbearable screech next to me .

John Updike's short story, "A&P" is fictional in a sense that it has a common pattern that leads the reader through a series of events. These events began when three young ladies in bathing suits walk in A&P, and catch the eye of a young man named, Sammy. He seems to favor the chunkier girl of the three that walk in to the store.

In general, there are many teenagers that are not comfortable or do not have enough trust to talk to their parents about issues such as drinking, smoking, sex, drugs, and failing grades at school. Some of them are just too uncomfortable or scared to talk about such issues. They could be nervous that their parents will be dissatisfied with them. Others may have experienced a domestic violence and cannot tell for fear of

Powder by Tobias Wolff is an exceptional short story that describes the memorable time of a young boy and his father. The Protagonist’s conflict in this story can range between many things. One conflict is accepting that he can live in the moment instead of worrying about the consequences later on. The second conflict is allowing himself to accept who his father is and admire his father for what he tries to do. Knowing that his parents are going through a divorce is very hard on him in many ways.

Whether intentional or not, keeping secrets is part of human nature. Be it a small and embarrassing habit, or even a brief moment of breaking the law, some things find it best to leave personal acts that they deem deviant out of day to day conversation. For some, keeping these secrets may be no problem, but for others it can be agonizing. In Nathaniel Hawthorne’s The Scarlet Letter, multiple perspectives show the differing ways in which people deal with their “secret sins.” The calm, accepting manner of Hester Prynne juxtaposed with the debilitated Arthur Dimmesdale work to demonstrate the effects of secrets on the psyche; the longer one tries to conceal a dastardly secret, the faster it will diminish them from the

Immediately the reader is thrown into the struggling family dynamic of the Guy being dismissed out of the household for his son. Accordingly, the author gradually builds up the tension of Guy slipping out of his duty as being the strong, essential father figure. Within the first steps into his

The big meaning in the short story of T.C Boyle’s “The Lie” is that Lonnie feels very awkward about his situation. Everything starts in a morning in which Lonnie can’t bear his job and needs a break. He gets into a situation where he creates a little lie which gets very big with a kind of snowball effect. Lonnie’s relationship with the people around him plays a significant role in this story. However, Lonnie feels lost and is depressed because of the change that happened in his life.

The Scarlet Letter, a novel by Nathaniel Hawthorne, depicts a woman ostracized from her town in Puritan New England after her sin of adultery is revealed, although the father of the illegitimate child remains unknown to the town. In The Tell-Tale Heart, a short story by Edgar Allan Poe, the narrator murders an elderly man in the middle of the night and attempts to cover up his crime. Hawthorne and Poe use the psychological torment and suffering of Arthur Dimmesdale and the narrator in The Tell-Tale Heart to convey that hiding one’s sinful actions from society leads to the strong emotions of pain and guilt, demonstrating that one can only end their misery, leading to freedom, by accepting and exposing their mistakes to society.

Are you ready to analyze three stories? Yes? Awesome! No? Too bad, because here we go! The three stories in question are The Leap by Louise Erdrich, The Contents of a Dead Man’s Pockets by Jack Finney, and Ambush by Tim O’Brien. The authors of these stories use aspects of their stories to shape the plot, show the theme, and to change the views and opinions of the characters in the stories.