Florida Literary Elements

Short Stories, Short Fiction, Southern Gothic Fiction

The stories are set in Florida

The point of view is generally that of the protagonists of the story. For example, "Snake Stones" is told from the point of view of the woman who feels taken for granted.

Depressing, bleak, frightening, threatening, gloomy

In "Snake Stones", the protagonist is the older woman and the antagonist is the young woman she helps

There is conflict within each of the characters themselves as they look at the world around them and realize that they are conflicted about it and their feelings towards it.

The two girls on the island realize that the greater threats to their lives come not from the natural world around them but from people in both their past and their present.

The woman who helps the younger girl realizes that she has been taken for granted which foreshadows her introspection and musing about the decline in the morality of people.

The prior lives of the girls on the island have been very traumatic, yet this trauma is understated in many ways by the girls themselves as they are willing to attribute only a small amount of the danger in their lives to the enormous dangers they have encountered at the hands of abusive men.

The young girls allude to events in their lives that have landed them in the situation that they now find themselves in.

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The woman in "Snake Stones" and the woman in "Ghosts and Empties" both begin their stories by seeing the good in others but end up the most discouraged of all the characters in the collection because of the way they have given themselves to others and been used quite badly in return.

There is a parallel between the woman's experiences after helping an ungrateful girl and her increased pessimism about the future morality of humankind.

The world around her is a phrase that is used frequently in the stories, encompassing all of the people with whom the characters come into contact.

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