A Good Man Is Hard to Find by Flannery O'Connor

“A Good Man Is Hard to Find” is a story about universal justice. It shakes us readers to the core, when a traditional family is suddenly murdered by a serial killer, the Misfit, on their way to vacation in Florida. Despite the fact that we are initially shocked and appalled by the Misfit’s actions, he defends himself by comparing himself to Jesus and stating how all he wants to do is establish a universal sense of justice. Thus, he decides to murder the family because every single one of its members feels the liberty to judge others without judging themselves. The Misfit then considers this family and every other family that makes up our society, hypocrites. According to him, we all feel entitled to judge and prosecute criminals, like the Misfit, without realizing that in reality we are hypocrites because we don’t judge and punish ourselves for our own sins.

The Yellow Wallpaper by Charlotte Perkins Gilman

“The Yellow Wallpaper” is the story of a woman who feels trapped. She is asphyxiated and subjugated by her husband and by a patriarchal society that seem to be paying more attention to her body than to her mind. She is given bed-rest when what needs healing is her mind. All of the impotence and hysteria she feels as a result of this, is revealed in the story’s disordered narrative and writing. The overall design and form of “The Yellow Wallpaper” gives the reader the chance to experience the character’s insanity, instead of just reading about it. The journal-like structure sinks us in the narrator’s madness so that we can experience what she is living. Furthermore, it provides us with interrupted sentences, incomplete thoughts and all sorts of odd ideas. All of these, in the effort of making us realize what it is like to be a woman living behind the imprisoning “yellow wallpaper” of a patriarchal society.

Reflections by Angela Carter

“Reflections” tells a confusing story about a young man that finds a strange looking shell while walking through a forest, which leads to a series of cryptic events. He is first held captive by an androgynous looking girl who takes him to a big house where a hermaphrodite forces him to go through a mirror. At the other side of this mirror, the entire world seems to be reversed. But the most important event comes when Anna, his initial captor, forces him to the ground and rapes him. The shocking and unexpected turn of events leads us to understand the importance of the story. “Reflections” is actually a distorted mirror that shows us the “horrors of reality”, as several analyses of the story suggest. For instance, the fact that we find the raping of a man by a woman so disturbing proves how it is common for a woman to be raped in our current world, thus demonstrating the horror of the prevalent double standard in our society.

The Death of Ivan Ilych by Leo Tolstoy

The “Death of Ivan Ilych” tells the tragic story of Ivan Ilych, a middle class judge attempting to rise above his status in Russian society. Nevertheless, Ivan’s economic and social rise corresponds to his spiritual downfall. In setting material objects and wealth as his objects of adoration, Ivan Ilych forgets about what is most important: human contact. Then, all of a sudden he is diagnosed with a horrific and terminal disease that slowly consumes him until he is no more than a living corpse. As he is about to die, Ivan realizes that his ultimate sin is his indifference to human touch. Now that he knows why he is being punished, his only redemption comes from leaving his son and all of us readers, a deathbed legacy, which is to forgo Ivan Ilych’s lifestyle and ultimate mistake.

Bartleby the Scrivener by Herman Melville

“Bartleby the Scrivener” is a story that features a very peculiar character. Initially, Bartleby is just another scrivener that has come to work in Wall Street. Nevertheless, his constant and bizarre refusal to do any work reveals his identity. “I would prefer not to” is the phrase Bartleby uses whenever his boss requests something from him. This is actually a symbol of Bartleby’s defiance and rebellion towards the apparent meaningless and monotonous life of all scriveners, and all other humans, for all that matter. Thus, whenever Bartleby says “I would prefer not to”, he is actually telling us that we have a choice. In other words, we can prefer or choose not to lead a safe and meaningless existence and instead seek to analyze the purpose of life and by extension, to understand ourselves.