 Welcome to my channel, I am Arapata Karwa and in this video I am going to talk about the most famous American short story writers and their remarkable works. This new topic short stories was introduced recently in the syllabus. Earlier as well they were asking questions from short stories, but they never specifically mentioned in the syllabus. Now that they have mentioned it, it's important that we go into details and we check out the most important writers and understand their works in detail. So for this purpose I made a crash course series in which I would be talking about the most important short story writers and I would also be looking at the most famous short stories which we can expect in the net exam. If you want a full list of writers and their works then you can go to my website ArapataKarwa.com and check out the detailed list of writers and topics which are a part of the new syllabus. We have segregated it in 10 modules and for each of the modules you will get the list of all the topics that you must study. Also this video lecture series is going to continue for a few more days. So if you want to be notified about the upcoming videos on short stories and short story writers then do subscribe to the channel. The first important short story writer is Edgar Allan Poe. I'm pretty sure that you must have read some famous poetry of Edgar Allan Poe as well as you must have heard of some short stories of Edgar Allan Poe. Now Edgar Allan Poe mastered the art of writing psychological thrillers. So he was talking about the psyche of the narrator and he was to describe what is happening inside the mind of the character. So at the same time he was writing during the romantic movement in America and therefore he also mastered the art of Gothic literature. All his short stories you will find that there is some element of Gothic literature involved. If you look at the major works by Edgar Allan Poe then the first important work is Tell Tail Heart. It is a beautiful short story in which he describes a narrator who murders a man. But that narrator tries to convince you throughout the short story that he is sane and he is justifying his act. But later what surprises the reader is when the narrator is able to listen to the heartbeat of the dead man. This story Tell Tail Heart is most of the time paired with another fantastic work by Edgar Allan Poe which is Black Cat. When I was in my graduation we had Black Cat in our syllabus and when I read this particular short story I was so much fascinated. I was so amazed that I decided to read more works by Edgar Allan Poe. Black Cat is a beautiful short story in which there is a cat with the name Pluto. Now the narrator of the short story loves the cat very much. But then one day in the influence of alcohol he murders the cat. Later he finds that he has trapped himself in a cycle of murder and he murders his own wife. When he goes in the basement of his house to bury the wife he finds that he is haunted constantly by the cat that he has murdered. So you can see how Gothic elements are coming up again and again in the works of Edgar Allan Poe. Apart from that there is another superb story which is titled as Spit in the Pendulum. Murder of Roe Mogars. All these works by Edgar Allan Poe are discussed in my online course. Apart from that I would suggest you that please make a list of most important stories of Edgar Allan Poe and just go through quick summaries so that you know what the story is talking about. Second on the list of the most important short story writers in American literature is Shaldred Gilman Perking. She is one of my favorite writer and I love her short story Yellow Wallpaper. Yellow Wallpaper is a classic short story which comes under the feminist literature. Now if you look at this work you will find that the major theme is the postpartum depression. It's a form of depression which is commonly seen in new mothers. Females who have just become mothers they find themselves in this postpartum depression. And this work is an autobiographical short story and that is why you can actually see the life and views of Shaldred Gilman Perking when you read this short story. Now what is the story all about? The story is about a lady who suffers from postpartum depression and she has been advised rest therapy by the doctor. Now what is rest therapy? Rest therapy is when you need to be in one room for long hours. So when she is in one room she has a yellow wallpaper in front of her bed. So when she is looking at the yellow wallpaper she pictures a woman who is trapped in that yellow wallpaper and she decides to liberate that woman. She makes all the effort so that she can free that woman from the wallpaper. And at the end you will find that she says that I have torn the entire wallpaper and now I have set the woman free. This particular short story has been asked in net exam several times. In December 2013 there was a question that which classic short story has the following ending lines. And the lines were I have to creep over him again and again. So when you look at the closing lines you will find that the story is yellow wallpaper. Apart from that there was a tricky question which was again asked in 2014. The question was who wrote the work novel on yellow wallpaper. Now don't get confused the options had both Charlotte Gilman Perking and Stevie Smith. But the correct answer is Stevie Smith. Charlotte Gilman Perking has written a short story that is yellow wallpaper. Whereas novel on yellow wallpaper was written by Stevie Smith. And then the important writer in the field of American short stories is Kate Shopping. Kate Shopping has written a fantastic short story called story of an hour. In this story of an hour she talks about a lady who hears about her husband's supposed death in railroad accident. But rather than feeling terrible on her husband's death she instead starts to feel liberated. So this work shows exactly how a female needs to get out of the male chauvinistic world and needs to develop an identity of her own. And this identity should be separated from the identity of her husband. Another important short story American writer is William Faulkner. We all know the contribution of William Faulkner in the field of English literature is immense. He has received Nobel Prize in 1949 for some of the most amazing novels he has written like As I Lay Dying. But we don't know this fact that this writer has written a collection of short stories which were published. And because of this short story collection he received National Book Award in 1957. And out of these short stories the most famous one is Rose for Emily. This work Rose for Emily I have discussed in detail in my online course. I would just like to give you a glimpse about this story. Rose for Emily is a story about a girl who becomes one of the most interesting female characters in the history of English literature. And this girl's name is Emily Gerson. We cannot end our discussion on American short story writers unless and until we talk about Oh Henry. I am pretty sure that you must have heard the famous short story of Oh Henry during your school days. And the short story's name is Gift of Maggie. It's a very very heart touching story in which we find a devoted husband and a wife. Now they both decide to give each other a Christmas gift. So husband in order to gift her wife beautiful comb actually sells his own watch. On the other hand wife to give her husband a watch chain actually sells her own hair. And at the end they both find that they have given them gift which nobody can use. And this short story is very interesting. At the same time the title is very important. The title talks about a character named Maggie. Maggie was a biblical character who gave a gift to Jesus Christ on his birth. So the title comes from Bible where there's an episode in which Maggie who is a biblical wise man gave a gift to Jesus Christ on the birth of Christ. So with that note I would like to take leave from here. But before you go don't forget to subscribe to the YouTube channel because this Crash Course series is going to run even in the future. So if you want to get notified about our latest videos do subscribe to the channel. Also like and share it with your friends. As far as the YouTube video series is concerned we would be uploading a lot more videos on the important topics of UGC Net. If you have any other topic in mind which you would like me to make a video on you can put that in the comment section below. I would like to tell you one more thing. We are running a very very special Go Net quiz on all our social media platforms. So the link is given in the description box below. Do follow us on the social media platforms so that you get notified about our recent videos about the recent UGC Net update. And also you can find fun facts about me on the social media platform. So that's it for this video lecture. We'll meet soon in the next video lecture till the time we meet next. Happy learning. Keep loving literature and stay tuned to ArpataKarwa.com