"The illusionist"

In the turn of the Twentieth Century, in Vienna, the teenager Eduard Abramovich is the son of a cabinetmaker that becomes fascinated with magic. While practicing some tricks on the streets, he meets the upper-class Sophie, they become friends and later they fall in love for each other. When they are separated by Sophie's family, the broken-hearted Eduard travels to the Far East and fifteen years later he returns to Vienna as a famous illusionist with a different name, Eisenheim. While performing a show in the presence of the ambitious and ruthless Crown Prince Leopold and the corrupt Inspector Uhl, Sophie volunteers for a trick on the stage and they immediately recognize each other. The flame of their passion bursts, but Sophie is engaged of Leopold, as part of his political game to be crowned king with the support of Hungary in a coup d'état against his father. Sophie and Eisenheim plan to runaway together, but when the drunken Leopold discloses their intention, he apparently kills Sophie. The grieving Eisenheim brings his Chinese acquaintances and performs an amazing show, where nothing is what it seems

"The Short,Happy Life of Francis Macomber"

The initially cowardly Francis Macomber and his symbolically castrating wife are being guided on a game hunt by a professional hunter Robert Wilson. Macomber repeatedly shows his cowardice and is chastised by his wife Margot, who sarcastically responds to his assertiveness late in the story with the line, "You've gotten awfully brave, awfully suddenly." Ironically, Macomber does, in fact, finally become truly fearless, as he demonstrates by standing his ground and firing at a charging buffalo, "shooting a touch high each time and hitting the heavy horns, splintering and chipping them like hitting a slate roof..." Margot grabs a gun, ostensibly to stop the still-charging buffalo, and shoots Macomber, killing him. Robert Wilson, having witnessed the profound change of character and self-confidence that had occurred within Macomber, tells Margot, "he would have left you too." Though Wilson says he will report Macomber's death as accidental, it is unclear whether his wife had shot him on purpose or by accident.

The Tell-Talle Heart

"The Tell-Tale Heart" is a first-person narrative of a genderless narrator who is taking care of an old man with a clouded eye. The narrator's paranoid symptoms lead to an irrational fear of the weird clouded eye. The narrator becomes so distressed by the eye a plot forms to murder the old man. For eight nights, the narrator opens the door of the old man's room, a process which takes him a full hour, watching and waiting for the perfect moment to strike. However, the old man's eyes are shut, hiding the clouded eye, and the narrator loses the urge to kill. One night, though, the old man awakens as the narrator watches, revealing the eye, the narrator strikes, smothering the old man with his own mattress. The narrator proceeds to chop the body up, and hide the pieces under the floorboards. The narrator then cleans the place up to hide all signs of the crime. When the narrator reports that the police (whether a delusion or real is unclear) respond to a call placed by a neighbor who heard a distressful scream, the narrator invites them to look around, confident that they will not find any evidence of the murder. They sit around the old man's room, right on top of the very hiding place of the dead body, yet suspect nothing. The narrator, however, begins to hear a faint noise. As the noise grows louder, the narrator hallucinates that it is the heartbeat of the old man coming from under the floorboards. This paranoia increases as the officers seem to pay no attention to the sound, which is loud enough for the narrator to admit to having heard. Shocked by the constant beating of the heart and a feeling that the officers must be aware of the heartbeats, the narrator loses control and confesses to killing the old man and tells them to tear up the floorboards to reveal the body.

"The Necklace"

"The Necklace" tells the story of a nineteenth-century middle class French couple, Monsieur and Madame Mathilde Loisel. Monsieur Loisel is a clerk in the ministry of public information. Madame Loisel is a beautiful young lady, who might have been married to a richer man, if her family wasn't poor. Monsieur Loisel is invited to a distinguished party, and wishes to take his wife with him. Madame Loisel, however, is hesitant to attend, complaining that "there's nothing so humiliating as looking poor in the middle of a lot of rich women." In addition to acquiring a new dress, at her husband's suggestion she borrows a diamond necklace from her friend, Madame Jeanne Forestier, and attends the party. She is the wonder of the night, and all the men wish to dance with her. Disastrously, Madame Loisel somehow loses the necklace during the evening.
Monsieur and Madame Loisel decide they must buy an identical diamond necklace from the 'Palais Royal' as a replacement for Madame Forestier. Unable to bear the shame of this, they do not inform Madame Forestier of the change and spend the next ten years of their lives paying off the debts, which costs them about thirty-six thousand francs, a fortune at the time. Both Monsieur and Madame Loisel are forced to take on extra jobs and live in abject poverty. At the end of the ten years, Madame Loisel, now older, tougher and less graceful from years of hard manual labor, has an opportunity to tell her old friend of the lost necklace. Madame Forestier is shocked and informs Madame Loisel that her original necklace was, in fact, an imitation "...worth at the very most five hundred francs!"

The Lottery

The story contrasts commonplace details of contemporary life with the barbarism of the ritualistic lottery. The setting is a small American town where the locals display a celebratory mood as they gather on June 27 for their annual lottery. After a person from each family draws a small piece of paper, one slip with a black spot indicates the Hutchinson family has been chosen. When each member of that family draws again to narrow the selection, the family's mother, Tessie Hutchinson, is the final choice. She is then stoned by everyone present, including her own family. The reader, though, does not know the true situation until the first stone strikes Tessie Hutchinson, although the tone becomes darker as her fate draws nearer and nearer.

Los Vendidos

In his play, "Los Vendidos," Luis Valdez addresses, through humor and stereotypes, the issues faced by Mexicans in America, throughout history. Although a "White Washed Mexican" woman is supposedly looking for a Mexican, what she is actually looking for is an American with darker skin. The key word here is American, as she is looking for someone who has denied his or her Mexican roots and become acculturated to the American way of life. As history repeats itself, this woman does not want a Mexican for any other reason than the fact that he is Mexican, and she has no respect for his heritage.

Oedipus Rex

Oedipus rex is the name of the king of Thebes the story being when the men of the city lament it loudly because, Thebes is suffering from a plague. Oedipus promises to save the city. Creon, brother-in-law to Oedipus, returns from the oracle at Delphi and declaims the words of the gods: Thebes is harboring the murderer of Laius, the previous king. It is the murderer who has brought the plague upon the city. Oedipus promises to discover the murderer and cast him out. He questions Tiresias, the soothsayer, who at first refuses to speak. Angered at this silence, Oedipus accuses him of being the murderer himself. Provoked, Tiresias speaks at last, stating that the murderer of the king is a king. Terrified, Oedipus then accuses Tiresias of being in league with Creon, who he believes covets the throne. With a flourish from the chorus, Jocasta appears and calms the dispute by telling all the oracles always lie. An oracle had predicted that Laius would die at his son's hand, when in fact he was murdered by bandits at the crossing of three roads. This frightens Oedipus further: he recalls killing an old man at a crossroads before coming to Thebes. A messenger arrives: King Polybus of Corinth, who Oedipus believes to be his father, has died. However, it is now revealed that Polybus was only the foster-father of Oedipus, who had been, in fact, a foundling. An ancient shepherd arrives: It was he who had found the child Oedipus in the mountains. Jocasta, realizing the truth, flees. At last, the messenger and shepherd state the truth openly: Oedipus is the child of Laius and Jocasta, killer of his father, husband of his mother. Shattered, Oedipus leaves. The messenger then reports the death of Jocasta: she has hanged herself in her chambers. Oedipus broke into her room and put out his eyes with her pin. Oedipus departs Thebes forever as the chorus at first vents their anger and then mourns the loss of a king they loved.