Short Story Essays

These are from the book The Literature of the American South. They are short stories. 

Each one should be approximately 300 words each.  Parenthetically cite your sources (if any) 

1. Discuss the significance of the title to Ernest J. Gaines’ “The Sky Is Gray,” with mention of weather, segregation, and good versus evil in the postlapsarian world.  

2. In Flannery O’Connor’s "Revelation," explain how Mary Grace brings about a spiritual epiphany in Ruby Turpin through violence. 

3. Discuss shoe symbolism regarding the boy, the father, and the tramp in Robert Penn Warren’s "Blackberry Winter."

4. In William Faulkner’s Nobel Prize acceptance speech, he spoke of “the human heart in conflict with itself.”  Explain how Bayard Sartoris exemplifies this sentiment when encouraged by Drucilla and the southern gentleman’s code to avenge his father’s murder, yet by Aunt Jenny to turn the other cheek and follow another code, the code of law, “Thou shalt not kill.” 

5. Booker T. Washington, author of "The Atlanta Compromise," urged African Americans–under the Jim Crow Laws–to do just that.  Discuss the controversy