In Ernest Hemingway's novel The Old Man and the Sea, the narrator speaks of the healing power of the Gulf in a literal manner: the waters of the Gulf of Mexico heal the wounded hands of the fisherman. The seventeen stories in the following collection examine Hemingway's concept on other levels, focusing on the human ability--or lack thereof--to bridge psychological gulfs, and to find emotional healing. Three major currents run through the lives of the characters in Gulf: difficulties in relationships, struggles with identity, and a sense of being haunted by the unexplained. As the stories progress, the healing waters of the Gulf move the characters away from chaos and toward contentment. In early stories, characters are often appalled by the discovery of their true identities; the later stories feature heroes who've found happiness and peace. Scattered throughout the book are the haunted stories, those that question the boundaries between what is real and what is imagined, what is known and what can never be understood. Gulf is informed by the landscape of the south, yet some stories venture around the world, from the Gulf of Mexico to the heather-dotted hills of Scotland, exploring themes as dark and mysterious as the Gulf itself.

Living Without: Stories of Vandler County As Told By James Madison Redd studies the transition of the rural, and behind-the-times South, which was once firmly situated in place and time, into the present where Southern identity has become confused. The stories follow a Faulknerian trend by sharing a setting in a fictional county located in North Mississippi. All of the stories are interrelated and contain common characters. The genre is the Southern Gothic, and the time range is from the sixties to the present. Preceding the collection of stories is a critical introduction that explores the possibility of expanding the definition of movement, thereby increasing its significance within the craft of fiction.

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The work is devoted to the study of the principles of cyclization in short story collections by R. Bradbury. The material of the study comprises seven authors' collections: The Dark Carnival (1947), The Golden Apples of the Sun (1953), A Medicine for Melancholy (1959), Far After Midnight (1976), In Blink of an Eye (1996) The Cat's Pajamas (2004) and We Will Always Have Paris (2009). This selection was made so as cover different stages of the author’s life and, as a consequence, different periods of the writer’s work. Another important criterion was some short stories within these collections being written in significant time intervals, from six to thirty years. In the first part of the work, the concepts of “literary cycle” and “cyclization” are studied, the functions of prosaic cyclisation and its role in the history of literature development are studied, classification of prose cycle varieties is provided, based on the typology of the internal structure of cycles proposed by S. Nesterova in the dissertation “Cyclic text construction in short epic prose”. In the second part of the work author’s collections by R. Bradbury are analyzed. The main task is to study the stories in order to find the connecting elements typical for the Bradbury cycles, taking into account the unique features and distinctive properties of each collection: the patterns in the cycle structures are revealed, the most characteristic elements for these structures, passed invariantly from one cycle to another, the reasons for using these elements and their functions in the cyclization mechanism are studied. The analysis is carried out on several levels: thematic and ideological, compositional (presence / absence of framing story, peculiarities in the sequence of stories, etc.) and plot. As a conclusion, the identified features are brought together and systematized, their role in the cycle structure and understanding of the author’s pragmatics is described. / Работа посвящена изучению принципов циклизации в новеллистке Р. Брэдбери. Материал составили семь авторских сборников: «Темный карнавал» (1947), «Золотые яблоки солнца» (1953), «Лекарство от меланхолии» (1959), «Далеко за полночь» (1976), «В мгновенье ока» (1996), «Кошкина пижама» (2004) и «У нас всегда будет Париж» (2009). Данный выбор был сделан преимущественно на основании принадлежности сборников к разным этапам жизни и, как следствие, к разным периодам творчества писателя. Еще одним важным критерием послужило наличие в некоторых сборниках текстов, написанных в значительных временных интервалах, от шести до тридцати лет. В первой части работы уточняются понятия «цикл» и «циклизация», изучаются функции прозаического цикла и его роли в истории развития литературы, дается классификация разновидностей прозаического цикла с опорой на типологию внутренней структуры циклов, предложенную С. Нестеровой в диссертации «Циклическое текстопостроение в малой эпической прозе». Во второй части работы анализируются авторские сборники Р. Брэдбери. Основной задачей является изучение рассказов с целью обнаружить типичные для циклов Брэдбери связующие элементы, учитывая при этом уникальные черты и отличительные свойства каждого сборника: выявляются закономерности в структурах исследуемых циклов, описываются наиболее характерные для данных циклов элементы, выступающие в качестве объединяющих черт и переходящие из цикла в цикл, изучаются причины использования данных элементов и их функций в механизме циклизации. Анализ проводится на нескольких уровнях: тематическом и идейном, композиционном (наличие/отсутствие обрамляющей истории, особенности в выстраивании последовательности рассказов и т.п.) и сюжетном. В качестве вывода выявленные черты объединяются и систематизируются, описывается их роль в осуществлении циклизации и понимании авторского замысла.

This project consists of a union between sci-fi, magic, and realism. Using magic in the same contexts of realism is to make a legend come to life in our modern world. All three stories deal with difficult situations: the struggle of creation and insecurities, the struggle of suicide and overcoming traumatic experiences, the struggle of disabilities and disadvantages and turning it into strength. These topics are introduced through characters who find themselves coming up with solutions through fantastical means as outlets for their pain. In "She Who Fell in Love with the Sky and Sea," an artist and an unlikely mythical muse come together to create the best art the world has ever seen, yet the art becomes unclaimable to the artist at the twisted eyes of her muse. In "Death Date," death has visited Sola through a psychic prediction arriving with perfect timing. She is given one year to live. Struggling with a traumatic past, her death date encourages Sola to live out the rest of her days and stop her original plans. The Switch explores the conditions of living in dystopian lands with a neighboring land that is a utopia. This novel explores the life of Sain as he uncovers the mysterious disappearances of his fellow townspeople. On his journey, he discovers more than he wanted to know. Diving deeper into the governing rule of the Regime, Sain finds himself as a savior for not only his people but for the hidden people within the border. Sain, starting off weaker than most due to his father's negligence, must advance his axum, a power flowing within everyone at birth, and reduce the Regime to what it once was to reclaim what rightfully belongs to his people.

This thesis considers how Mori Ōgai’s “Maihime” (1890) and Su Manshu’s “Suizanji” (1916) conform and differ from Edgar Allen Poe’s theory of the short story. It then considers Ōgai’s and Su’s reading of the short stories and East Asian short fiction as well as Ōgai’s definition of the short story to consider why these works of short fiction differ from Poe’s definition, concluding that they are hybrid works, which seek to combine the short story and East Asian short fiction.

Chapter 1 outlines the aim of the study, research methodology, delimitation of scope and the definition of some terms. This is followed by a list of Zulu short stories which Ntuli has already contributed. His other contributions in circles outside the writing of fiction are also acknowledged. Finally, tribute is paid to some contributions made by Ntuli as an endeavour to uplift the standard of Zulu writing. In Chapter 2 plot structure is discussed. This is followed by an in-depth semiotic analysis of some short stories. Chapter 3 deals with the different narration techniques employed by the author in his short stories. Chapter 4 differentiates between actors and characters. Different methods of character portrayal are investigated. Chapter 5 concludes this dissertation by summarising the main finding of this study. It also brings forth some conclusions with regard to literary merit of Ntuli's short stories and his contribution to Zulu literature. / African Languages / M.A. (African Languages)