Nobody going to mention a Cask of Amontillado? Maybe not the most mind-bending example, but the tale of leading a supposed friend to their own horrific murder was not a thing I expected to be reading in school.
“For the love of God, Montresor!”
The reply to that just being “Yes, for the love of God,” was cold as ice.
Funnily enough I did on a similar post a month ago.
i remember that post, was actually hoping to find it again as there had been some great recommendations! glad you mentioned it here.
Wasn’t even required reading for me. I was just flipping through my textbook one day and found that in one of the sections the class was never going to reach.
Was that before or after the school-shooting lockdown drills?
After the hide under your desk from nuclear bombs drills but before the active shooter drills.
Nuclear attack drills? I don’t think we ever did those, I’ve just heard about them from older people. How old are you? I thought those stopped in like the 80s or something.
I grew up in a small town in Canada. We never had any kind of lock down drills.
Dang, things must be pretty good up in Canada. People are sending their children to first grade with ballistic-shielded backpacks down here.
There is a modicum of school violence in Canada, primarily in Urban/Metro centres, but not enough to cause general panic. Tue States has a pretty unique problem.
That story still haunts me, and I’ve been trying to remember where it was from for over a decade.
Feh! Luchesi…
Maybe try a poem.
The Death of the Ball Turret Gunner
From my mother’s sleep I fell into the State,
And I hunched in its belly till my wet fur froze.
Six miles from earth, loosed from its dream of life,
I woke to black flak and the nightmare fighters.
When I died they washed me out of the turret with a hose.
Randall Jarrell, 1945
I think that was the inspiration for the B-17 scene from the animated movie Heavy Metal, which fucked me up as a kid.
Holy fuck who wrote this?
I should have attributed, sorry.
Randall Jarrell, published in 1945.
Bomber ball turret gunners and tail gunners had the shortest life expectancy of any combat occupation in the war, as these were the first targets of incoming fighters. I found one site that said tail gunners’ combat life expectancy was four missions.
Ball turrets couldn’t reload in flight. The ball was too small for parachutes, and the mechanisms jammed or froze often. Typically they put small, young, single guys in them.
Lots of great nightmares fuel here, but I can’t believe nobody’s mentioned The Lottery yet. The end of that story still makes me feel absolutely nauseous.
I had blocked that one from my memory; I remember now. Thanks. ಠ_ಠ
I still can’t figure out why this is taught to children. What value does it offer, other than being generally well written, which a lot of other less disturbing stories also are? Did the teachers just hate us?
The theme I remember is that if established in a community and reinforced by tradition, any violence could be perpetuated and even endorsed.
I had this one used by 2 different teachers for different grades.
The Great Gatsby is a great novel about the immobility of class in America, despite the country’s claim to the opposite. I didn’t realize this in highschool when I read it, but damned if it wasn’t a warning of things to come.
For sale:
Baby shoes.
Never worn.
I can do that author one better (or three better):
For sale: baby.
For sale: baby. Never used.
“Alright Class, today we are going to read “The Jaunt” by Stephen King and write a report about the effects of eternal nothingness on the human psyche” -my sick fuck English teacher in grade 7 for some reason.
I just read this as an adult a few weeks ago actually. Pretty dope thing to have read in class but I can see how it would make a lasting impression
I mean I loved it. We also got to read some ray bradbury and Isaac Asimov in that semester.
Asimov in school is a true power move, hell yeah. I did *read Bradbury’s Farenheit 451 and that book changed my (literary) life as a kid. My school was christian so good literature was few and far between
I’m jealous of anyone who got to do bradbury in class. I did a book report on him but there was no class discussion. I just reread Kaleidoscope the other day, one of my faves. Actually most stuff from The Illustrated Man was dope.
Oh we just read The Veldt, which was a bomb ass short story to get to read in grade 7.
That’s a great one. Maybe it’s time to reread the bradbury anthology collection I have. Some of his work can be a total brain bender
Yeah it was great for me because from grade four on I was super into reading horror and sci fi, and when we got to read them in class and all my friends also had to read it I got to talk about it with people.
Not exactly a short story, but Kipling’s The Young British Soldier still tumbles around in my head some 25 years later. Really cemented in me that I don’t want to go die in some other country for some fabricated sense of duty to my country. Not that I wanted to at that point, but for sure made it seem like an extra terrible idea.
“Today, students, we are going to learn about Carcosa.”
For me that was “The Man in the Well” which the school librarian read to us in 4th grade during library story hour.
9th Grade English, got assigned Invisible Man by Ellison. It wasn’t science fiction like I thought it’d be 😅
Incredible book
I don’t really remember any of the short stories assigned in English specifically, but I do remember one in my middle school textbook that I only remember because of the artwork. It was done by Stephen Gammel; the same dude that did the original artwork for Scary Stories to Tell in the Dark. It’s especially memorable because the story was just about some cute anthropomorphic animals working on a farm or something, but it had the same crazy “spider webs dripping with blood” style from the Scary Stories books.
I hella wish I could remember the name of the story, or at least the specific textbook it was in.
Are we ready to talk about The Girl with the Green Ribbon now?
Is that the one where
(spoiler to be nice cuz if it’s the one I’m thinking of it was actually pretty good)
Tap for spoiler
it gets untied and her head falls off?
Tap for spoiler
Yep
Shit I haven’t thought about these sort of weird semi-horror books in such a wildly long time. I used to go out of my way to find somewhat morbid stuff like that (not to be edgy, but because I was reading prolifically, and ahead of my age group, so it was a whole new paradigm).
Thanks for the reminder :)
You’re welcome
Scary Stories to Tell in the Dark: The Red Spot
I got that book from the library when I was less than ten and I remember that one fucking with me.
Either I have a higher tolerance than most or my English teachers were pansies.
Though we did read the play version of The Diary of Anne Frank when I was in 8th grade.
Wait…you read the play version of a book? The fuck?
I don’t know that I’ve ever read the Diary in it’s entirety, but I’ve heard that there are some rather explicit parts, especially pertaining to Anne’s puberty, so maybe they did it to avoid that.
Those parts were not released by Anne’s father, they aren’t in any official edition.
Oh id forgotten they did that. We had to read the play of Of Mice and Men. It is not a book that is improved by being a play.
This is not limited to short stories and English. If I had not been an avid reader when entering my teen years, the selection of books thrown at me in school would have turned me into a passionate hater of books.
