A Raisin in the Sun
Lorraine Hansberry · Poetry & fiction
Read a full summary of Hansberry's A Raisin in the Sun — the Younger family's insurance payout, their clashing dreams, and their move to a white neighborhood.
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Read summaryPoetry & fiction summaries
Literary texts resist summary by design: the meaning sits in the imagery and the phrasing, not only in what happens. These entries give you the shape of the work — its themes, its central images and the questions critics keep returning to — as a way into the text, not a replacement for it.
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The Crucible
Arthur Miller · Poetry & fiction
Read a full summary of Miller's The Crucible — the Salem witch trials, John Proctor's hidden sin, and the hysteria that destroys a community.
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A Doll's House
Henrik Ibsen · Poetry & fiction
Read a full summary of Ibsen's A Doll's House — Nora's secret loan, her husband's reaction, and her shocking decision to leave her family.
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The Importance of Being Earnest
Oscar Wilde · Poetry & fiction
Read a full summary of Wilde's The Importance of Being Earnest — Jack and Algernon's double lives, the tangled engagements, and the farcical revelation of the truth.
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Waiting for Godot
Samuel Beckett · Poetry & fiction
Read a full summary of Beckett's Waiting for Godot — Vladimir and Estragon's endless wait, the visits of Pozzo and Lucky, and the play's meditation on meaning.
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The Glass Menagerie
Tennessee Williams · Poetry & fiction
Read a full summary of Williams's The Glass Menagerie — Tom's memory of his St. Louis family, his sister Laura's fragility, and the gentleman caller who shatters her hopes.
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Antigone
Sophocles · Poetry & fiction
Read a full summary of Sophocles' Antigone — her defiance of Creon's edict, the clash of divine and civil law, and the tragic deaths that follow.
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Romeo and Juliet
William Shakespeare · Poetry & fiction
Read a full summary of Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet — the feuding families, the secret marriage, and the tragic misunderstanding that kills them both.
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The Tempest
William Shakespeare · Poetry & fiction
Read a full summary of Shakespeare's The Tempest — Prospero's exile and magic, his daughter's romance, and his choice of forgiveness over revenge.
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Much Ado About Nothing
William Shakespeare · Poetry & fiction
Read a full summary of Shakespeare's Much Ado About Nothing — Beatrice and Benedick's trick romance, and the slander that nearly destroys Hero and Claudio.
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King Lear
William Shakespeare · Poetry & fiction
Read a full summary of Shakespeare's King Lear — Lear's fatal division of his kingdom, his daughters' betrayal, and his descent into madness.
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Twelfth Night
William Shakespeare · Poetry & fiction
Read a full summary of Shakespeare's Twelfth Night — Viola's disguise, the tangled love triangle it creates, and the comedy's happy resolution.
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The Pedestrian
Ray Bradbury · Poetry & fiction
Read a full summary of Bradbury's The Pedestrian — Leonard Mead's solitary walk through a future city, and his arrest by an automated police car.
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The Birthmark
Nathaniel Hawthorne · Poetry & fiction
Read a full summary of Hawthorne's The Birthmark — Aylmer's obsession with his wife's flaw, his fatal experiment, and what her death reveals about perfection.
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The Oval Portrait
Edgar Allan Poe · Poetry & fiction
Read a full summary of Poe's The Oval Portrait — the feverish narrator, the painter's obsessive masterpiece, and the wife whose life it drains away.
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The Purloined Letter
Edgar Allan Poe · Poetry & fiction
Read a full summary of Poe's The Purloined Letter — Dupin's psychological pursuit of a stolen letter hidden in plain sight, and how he recovers it.
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The Murders in the Rue Morgue
Edgar Allan Poe · Poetry & fiction
Read a full summary of Poe's The Murders in the Rue Morgue — Dupin's investigation of a locked-room killing, and the shocking non-human culprit he uncovers.
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The Short Happy Life of Francis Macomber
Ernest Hemingway · Poetry & fiction
Read a full summary of Hemingway's The Short Happy Life of Francis Macomber — his cowardice, his wife's affair, and the ambiguous shot that kills him.
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The Last Leaf
O. Henry · Poetry & fiction
Read a full summary of O. Henry's The Last Leaf — Johnsy's fatal superstition, Behrman's secret act of sacrifice, and the twist that reveals it.
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After Twenty Years
O. Henry · Poetry & fiction
Read a full summary of O. Henry's After Twenty Years — Bob's wait for his old friend Jimmy, and the twist that reveals who the patrolman really was.
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Indian Camp
Ernest Hemingway · Poetry & fiction
Read a full summary of Hemingway's Indian Camp — Nick's father delivering a baby by emergency surgery, and the death he discovers in the same night.
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Ligeia
Edgar Allan Poe · Poetry & fiction
Read a full summary of Poe's Ligeia — the narrator's obsession with his dead first wife, his second marriage, and the terrifying transformation that follows.
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The Dead
James Joyce · Poetry & fiction
Read a full summary of Joyce's The Dead — Gabriel's Christmas party, his wife's revelation about a lost love, and the story's meditation on mortality.
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Of Mice and Men
John Steinbeck · Poetry & fiction
Read a full summary of Steinbeck's Of Mice and Men — George and Lennie's dream of a farm, the ranch's outcasts, and the ending that destroys them both.
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Good Country People
Flannery O'Connor · Poetry & fiction
Read a full summary of O'Connor's Good Country People — Hulga's fake seduction, the Bible salesman's con, and the wooden leg he steals.
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The Pearl
John Steinbeck · Poetry & fiction
Read a full summary of Steinbeck's The Pearl — Kino's discovery, the violence it brings, and why he and Juana throw it back into the sea.
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The Call of the Wild
Jack London · Poetry & fiction
Read a full summary of Jack London's The Call of the Wild — Buck's brutal education in the Klondike, his bond with John Thornton, and his return to the wild.
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Everything That Rises Must Converge
Flannery O'Connor · Poetry & fiction
Read a full summary of O'Connor's Everything That Rises Must Converge — Julian's bus ride with his mother, the penny that provokes a stranger, and the story's tragic ending.
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The Life You Save May Be Your Own
Flannery O'Connor · Poetry & fiction
Read a full summary of O'Connor's The Life You Save May Be Your Own — Shiftlet's marriage of convenience, his abandonment of Lucynell, and the story's ironic ending.
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White Fang
Jack London · Poetry & fiction
Read a full summary of Jack London's White Fang — the wolf-dog's brutal youth, his exploitation by Beauty Smith, and his transformation under Weedon Scott's care.
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