"Young Goodman Brown" is a short story published in 1835 by American writer Nathaniel Hawthorne. The story takes place in 17th-century Puritan New England, a common setting for Hawthorne's works, and addresses the Calvinist/Puritan belief that all of humanity exists in a state of depravity, but that God has destined some to unconditional election through unmerited grace. Hawthorne frequently focuses on the tensions within Puritan culture, yet steeps his stories in the Puritan sense of sin. In a symbolic fashion, the story follows Young Goodman Brown's journey into self-scrutiny, which results in his loss of virtue and belief.
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"Hills Like White Elephants" is a short story by Ernest Hemingway. It was first published in August 1927 in the literary magazine transition, then later that year in the short story collection Men Without Women.
The story focuses mainly on a conversation between an American man and a young woman, described as a "girl," at a Spanish train station while waiting for a train to Madrid. The girl compares the nearby hills to white elephants. The pair indirectly discuss an "operation" that the man wants the girl to have, which is implied to be an abortion, that was taboo to talk about.
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"The Lottery" is a short story by Shirley Jackson that was first published in The New Yorker on June 26, 1948.[a] The story describes a fictional small American community that observes an annual tradition known as "the lottery", which is intended to ensure a good harvest and purge the town of bad omens. The lottery, its preparations, and its execution are all described in detail, though it is not revealed until the end what actually happens to the person selected by the random lottery.
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"Recitatif" is Toni Morrison's first published short story. It was initially published in 1983 in Confirmation: An Anthology of African American Women, an anthology edited by Amiri Baraka and Amina Baraka, and is the only short story written by the acclaimed novelist. The story was reissued as a stand-alone book, introduced by Zadie Smith, published in February 2022.
"Recitatif" is a story in racial writing, as the race of Twyla and Roberta are debatable. Though the characters are clearly separated by class, neither is affirmed as African-American or White. Morrison has described the story as "the removal of all racial codes from a narrative about two characters of different races for whom racial identity is crucial".
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