THE NECKLACE BY GUY DE MAUPASSANT — the story tells the tale of a dissatisfied middle-class woman whose dreams of wealth and glamour end in disaster. It has been often called Madam Bovary in miniature. THE LAST LEAF BY O HENRY — published in his collection The Trimmed Lamp & Other Stories, The Last Leaf follows Johnsy, a poor young woman who is seriously ill with pneumonia. She believes that when the ivy vine on the wall outside her window loses all its leaves, she will also die. THE POSTMASTER BY RABINDRANATH TAGORE — a young man from Calcutta is posted in an obscure village, Ulapur. Exhausted of a solitary living and desperate for human company, he opens his heart to the only avid listener available, an orphan girl of about 12, Ratan. MENESETEUNG BY ALICE MUNRO — Alice Munro’s short story “Meneseteung”, published in her collection Friend of My Youth, is about a poet Almeda Joynt Roth. While the narrator, whose sex is unclear, quotes from her poems and local newspaper reports and gives further possible indications, he comments on the social conditions of the time and the circumstances of the poet as he reconstructs their biography. THE YELLOW WALLPAPER BY CHARLOTTE PERKINS GILMAN — this a story about a woman who suffers from mental illness after being trapped within her home. The author wrote this story to change the minds about women’s role in the society. THE FLY BY KATHERINE MANSFIELD — this is story of an employer and his employee, largely focussing on the theme of control, ignorance, sacrifice, responsibility, and war. Taken from her The Doves’ Nest & Other Stories collection, the story is narrated by an unnamed narrator and Mansfield uses the setting of the story, the office of the boss, to explore the theme of control. BARTLEBY THE SCRIVENER BY HERMAN MELVILLE — the story is a tale of a Wall Street lawyer who hires a new clerk, who, after some initial days of hard work, refuses to make copy and any other task required of him, with the simple words “I would prefer not to.”