Tragic Endings

[desiringcoma]

I'm a student about to begin writing a paper on "tragic endings," namely, those prevalent in short stories. I've been reading King, Bierce, and Howells. Any suggestions on who to read, would be great.

[Schokokeks]

The first short story that comes to my mind is The Sniper by Liam O'Flaherty. It is set during the Irish Civil War. I don't want to tell the ending in order not to take away the surprise that makes it tragic :) .
Maybe you also want to have a look at the short stories of Guy de Maupassant. Most of them revolve around social outsiders whose situation is unchallengable.

Good luck with your paper ! :nod:

[Idril]

Dostoevsky's short stories rarely have a happy ending, he'd be a good one to try and if you're interested in novels with tragic endings, his The Idiot has to have the most devastating ending ever written.

[Kurtz]

You might also want to check out Dostoevsky's short story "Poor Folk". The ending is was less than happy.

[aeroport]

Hmm, it seems that James, being something of a realist, rarely attaches a happy ending to his stories. The first to come to mind are "Daisy Miller", "The Beast in the Jungle", "Four Meetings", "A Tragedy of Error" (that one's rather lame, though), "The Story of a Masterpiece", "The Real Thing", "A Day of Days", and "Brooksmith". He wrote another hundred or so stories, but I really doubt any of those could be said to have happyendings, either. The one, of those mentioned, that strikes me as most unfortunate is "The Beast".
Then There's Hawthorne. I've only read a few of his but "Young Goodman Brown" and "Sylph Etherege" both come to mind. Also, Hemingway's "The Capital of the World".