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Guy in a black leotard. In a cage. Not eating. Weird? Yes. Popular? Absolutely. Kafka's short story includes iconic artist-figures: a mouse singer...

What? She gets a rose and we don’t? Who is this Emily person anyway? What’s she done to deserve such a delightful, aromatic gift?

Three scantily clad young girls enter a store. No, this isn’t your grandfather about to tell an inappropriate joke. And no, you’re not watching...

"The Telltale Heart" by Edgar Allan Poe is the epitome of creepy. (We know we could say that about all of EAP's stories, but it's especially true f...

In Kate Chopin's "The Story of an Hour," Louise Mallard has a rather peculiar response to the news of her husband's death: instead of mourning for...

Wouldn't it be nice to be rich, even if that wealth came at the cost of other things? If you answered yes, here's another question: what if that co...

How would you feel if you lost a diamond necklace that you borrowed? We don't know your life, but we'd feel pretty crappy about it. In "The Necklac...

Oh ye of small attention spans: if novels don't float your boat, short stories just might. Even if that boat is less of an oil tanker and more of a...

Folk tales are all about conveying a deeper meaning—no banjos required. Arabian Nights is one of the most famous collections, so get ready to lea...

When you think about it, chess could be a metaphor for just about anything, really.

A dead man floats to shore. Sounds like the beginning of a bad joke or a horror movie, but wait: it gets weirder. He's super tall, super good-looki...

The title is pretty ironic when you consider how little sleep you'd be getting if you had a headless horseman chasing you.

Can you imagine some little guy who's constantly up in your business, criticizing your every move, and always trying to make you feel bad about you...

Three words: The Hunger Games. Wait, one more word: "scapegoat." Wait—oh, just watch the video already.

The Mahabha-what-now? Although you may not be as familiar with this epic text as you are with the Bible, it's just as famous in other parts of the...

We know we say this for all of his stories, but here's Edgar Allan Poe at his creepiest. Well, if you don’t include that time you went into the b...

Can you imagine what it would be like to be without the gift of sight? In "Cathedral," the narrator helps a blind man envision a cathedral by guidi...