Short stories about friendship

The Best Short Stories about Friendship – Interesting Literature

Friendship is such a universal and central theme to all of our lives, that picking just a small number of the best short stories about such a broad theme is always going to be a challenge. However, the following stories are by some of the finest masters of the short story form, and all of them touch upon friendship. Indeed, friendship is the central theme in many of them.

Henry James, ‘The Beast in the Jungle’.

In this longer tale from 1903 – it’s so long it is sometimes categorised as a ‘novella’ – Henry James uses his interest in delay to explore a friendship between a man and a woman which never turns into a romantic relationship because the man, John Marcher, fears that something terrible is going to befall him. What follows is one of James’s finest stories about death and how irrational fear of death at every turn can prompt us to hide away from living.

His stalwart and patient female companion, May, stands by his side and tries to help him make sense of this mysterious and imprecise threat which he feels hangs over him. Will this ‘beast’ lurking in the jungle of his unconscious ever be unleashed? Perhaps James’s finest example of a subversion of the traditional love story.

Oscar Wilde, ‘The Devoted Friend’.

This is one of the fairy tales for children written by the Irish author Oscar Wilde (1854-1900). It was published in the 1888 collection The Happy Prince and Other Tales.

‘The Devoted Friend’ is about a Miller named Hugh, who professes to be devoted to his friend Hans, but in actual fact he uses Hans and insists on his performing endless favours for him without Hugh giving anything back in return. The story is about a very one-sided friendship, and evokes sympathy for poor Hans as we realise how selfish Hugh is towards his kind friend. A friend in need and all that …

O. Henry, ‘Telemachus, Friend’.

The (very) short stories of the US short-story writer O. Henry, whose real name was William Sydney Porter (1862-1910), are characterised by their irony, their occasional sentimentality, and by their surprise twist endings.

The narrator of this story is returning from a hunting trip in New Mexico when he heard the ensuing tale from a hotel proprietor named Telemachus Hicks. When the narrator pointed to Hicks’ mutilated ear, Hicks said that the ear was a relic of true friendship …

Saki, ‘Fur’.

We get a somewhat more cynical take on friendship in this story from Hector Hugh Munro (1870-1916), who wrote under the pseudonym Saki. A young woman named Suzanne wants her wealthy cousin Bertram to buy her an expensive birthday present. Her friend Eleanor devises a plan to help steer this relative towards buying Suzanne a silver-fox stole: the ‘fur’ of the story’s title.

James Joyce, ‘After the Race’.

This story, from James Joyce’s 1914 collection Dubliners, focuses on what happens after a motorcar race has finished, over the rest of the day – and throughout the same night. The protagonist, Jimmy Doyle, and his European friends walk around Dublin, go to dinner at a hotel, talk about politics and music among other things, and then catch the train to the harbour where they go to a yacht and proceed to get drunk dancing and playing cards.

J. D. Salinger, ‘Pretty Mouth and Green My Eyes’.

‘Pretty Mouth and Green My Eyes’ is, fundamentally, a story about lies and deception, in which three people involved in an eternal love triangle show themselves all to be dishonest in their dealings with each other.

Lee and Joanie are being dishonest to Arthur by conducting an affair behind his back. Meanwhile, Arthur, too, is capable of deceit, phoning his friend back and pretending that his wife has come home after all. The friendship between Arthur and Lee forms the centrepiece of this Salinger story.

Grace Paley, ‘Friends’.

Paley (1922-2007) offers us a tale of three female friends, Ann, Susan, and Faith. Faith narrates the story of the three friends’ visit to see their friend Selena, who is dying, and its aftermath, which sees the three central characters reminiscing about their lives and their friendship together.

Donald Barthelme, ‘Some of Us Had Been Threatening Our Friend Colby’.

The American writer Donald Barthelme (1931-89) is sometimes labelled as a ‘postmodernist’ writer (a label he was not entirely comfortable with, but reluctantly accepted) and, occasionally, ‘metafiction’ (a label he was less happy with). Many of his stories are deliberately absurdist, with hilarious but sometimes unnerving results.

This short story was first published in his 1976 anthology, Amateurs. The unsettling story sees a group of friends discussing how to hang their friend for committing an unnamed offence.

Alice Munro, ‘Hateship, Friendship, Courtship, Loveship, Marriage’.

Alice Munro (born 1931) is one of the leading contemporary writers of short stories. This story, set in Ontario in Canada, focuses on the friendship between Sabitha and Edith. Edith convinces Sabitha to forge love letters from Sabitha’s father to Johanna, the unmarried housekeeper for Sabitha. But Edith and Sabitha’s cruel trick will have terrible ramifications for poor Johanna.

Raymond Carver, ‘Where I’m Calling From’

Let’s conclude this pick of classic friendship stories with a short story by the American writer Raymond Carver (1938-88), originally published in the New Yorker in 1982.

The story is about a man trying to give up alcohol dependency in a rehabilitation centre, and his attempts to call his estranged wife and current girlfriend, hence the story’s title, ‘Where I’m Calling From’. The story takes in the themes of loneliness, alienation, and the need for human connection and friendship.

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Tags: Friendship, Literature, short stories

A short story by Sally Berneathy

            Paula and I met in the first grade. Since her last name was Brent and mine was Berneathy, she sat behind me. We were both shy and had nothing to say to each other until the day she asked to borrow my ruler.

            We lived in a small town in southern Oklahoma where money was scarce, and my six-inch red plastic ruler was a valued possession. Reluctantly, I loaned it to Paula--and she kept it for too long, or so it seemed to me. I turned around to take it back, but Paula wasn't through with it. I grabbed, she held on...the ruler broke.

            I cried. She cried. I blamed her, and she blamed me.

            And, in the manner of six-year olds, from that day forward, we were inseparable, the best of friends.

            As the years passed, we spent many nights at each other's houses, whispering the night away about our plans for the future. We were going to move to a big city and be room-mates in a gorgeous apartment. I would be a writer, and she would be an artist. She would illustrate my books, and we would both be rich and famous. When we were older, probably around twenty-five, we would marry and live next door to each other and be aunt to each other's children.

            When we were ten years old, we saw an episode of "Lassie" in which Timmy and his friend pricked their fingers and became blood brothers. Paula came home with me the next evening. We dug a hole in the hard earth out behind my family's weathered old barn, took a thorn from the locust tree and pricked our thumbs, joining our blood. We buried the thorn, each adding an item we prized, as the friends on "Lassie" had done. Paula contributed her dime-store set of water colors, and I added a paper back book. Our most valuable possessions--but not as valuable as our friendship.

            Then life intruded. When we were fourteen, Paula's father took a job in Dallas. Their last stop on the way out of town was my house. I stood in middle of the dirt road, waving and crying while Paula looked out the back window of the car, waving and crying.

            Still we stayed in touch, writing letters regularly. Still we planned. As we neared high school graduation, we swore that we'd move to Oklahoma City and get that apartment together.

            But Paula got married and had a baby. I married, too, and convinced my husband to move to Dallas. For years our friendship continued even though our dreams had fallen by the wayside. Paula became a nurse, and I a legal secretary. I wrote short stories and poems and shared them with her, and she painted me a picture of the old barn where our thorn lay buried.

            The years flew by. Then while we were both going through divorces, during the confusion and turmoil, we lost touch. Paula moved, changed jobs, remarried, got a new name and phone number.

            I remarried and moved to Kansas City, but I didn't know how to reach Paula to tell her. When my new husband and I bought a house, I hung her picture of our barn over my bed and wondered if I'd ever again see her. Her parents were both dead, and my mother was becoming senile, rarely remembering my phone number or address. Short of hiring a detective, I didn't know how I would ever find my friend again.

Often I looked at the picture, thought of my friend and wondered if I'd ever see her again.

            But behind the scenes, the magic spell of that thorn was working. Our childish sacrifices of prized possessions must have touched some angel's heart.

            Several years later I got a phone call and heard a familiar voice.

"Do you know who this is?"

            Of course I knew. I cried. She cried.

            She told me that she'd called my mother twice and been given wrong phone numbers both times. She'd almost given up, but decided to try one more time...and caught my mother in a rare moment of lucidity.

            Now Paula's back in Oklahoma, and I live in Missouri. We see each other every summer and call each other regularly.

            During the years we'd lost touch, she had another, unexpected, child...a girl, named after me.

            A girl who calls me "Aunt."

Parables about friendship. Instructive parables for children. Portal "Pustunchik"

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True friends are the best protection and support. No wonder they say that a tree lives by roots, and a person lives by friends. Today's parables about friendship will tell you who real friends are, how to choose them correctly, and how important it is to be able to make friends yourself.

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Do not miss witty, wise and instructive parables about friendship. Each of them is a priceless pearl of the author's or folk art. creativity. And each will make you smile and think about the value of the right friendship.

Read short parables of friendship and devotion to end. I promise you won't regret a single minute spent!

Nails

An instructive parable about friendship for children. Short story about an evil boy and his father will tell you how important it is to restrain anger and not offend friends.

Once upon a time there was a boy with a terrible temper. His father gave him a pouch with nails and told him to drive a nail into the garden fence every time he will lose patience and quarrel with someone. The first day the boy scored 37 nails. Over the following weeks, he tried to restrain himself, and the number hammered nails decreased day by day. Turns out it's easier to hold back how to hammer nails...

At last the day came when the boy did not hammer into the fence one nail. Then he went to his father and told about it. And his father told him to pull one nail out of the fence for each day in which he does not lose patience.

Days passed after days, and finally the boy was able to tell his father that he pulled out all the nails from the fence. The father brought his son to the fence and said:

- My son, you behaved well, but look at these holes in fence. She will never be the same again. When you are with someone quarreling and saying things that can hurt, you inflict to the interlocutor a wound like this. You can stab a man with a knife and then pull out, but the wound will still remain.

No matter how many times you ask for forgiveness, wound will remain. A mental wound brings as much pain as a physical one. Friends are rare gems, they bring you smile and joy. They are ready to listen to you when you need it, they support you and open their hearts to you. Try not to hurt them...

Caesar and the doctor reminds you once: never doubt your friends if your friendship is tested for years.

Caesar had the only person and friend to whom he trusted: this is his doctor. Moreover, if he was ill, he took medicines, only when the doctor personally gives it to him.

Once Caesar was not feeling very well, he received anonymous note: “Be afraid of your closest friend, your doctor. He wants you poison!" And after a while the doctor came and gave Caesar the medicine. Caesar handed the note to his friend and, while he was reading, drank to a drop. medicinal mixture.

The healer froze in horrified:

- Lord, how could you drink what I gave you after how did you read it?

To which Caesar replied him:

— Better to die than to doubt your friend!

How many friends does a person need?

How many friends do you think it takes to feel yourself happy? One, two, maybe dozens? interesting the parable of friendship from Boris Krumer will aptly answer this rhetorical question and will help to dot the "i".

The student came to the Teacher and asked him:

— Master, how many friends should a person have — one or a lot of?

“It’s very simple,” replied the Teacher, “pluck me that red apple from the topmost branch.

The student raised his head and answered:

— But it hangs very high, Master! I can't get it.

“Call a friend to help you,” the Master replied.

The student called another student and stood on his shoulders.

“I still can’t get it, Master,” said the distressed student.

— Do you have any more friends? The Teacher chuckled.

The student called more friends, who grunted and began to climb on each other's shoulders and backs, trying to build a living pyramid. But the apple hung too high, the pyramid crumbled, and the student could not break desired apple.

Then the teacher called him over:

— Well, do you understand how many friends a person needs?

“Understood, teacher,” the student said, rubbing his bruised side, “ a lot - so that together we can solve any problem.

— Yes, — replied the Master, shaking his head in dismay, — Really, you need a lot of friends. So that among all this gathering of gymnasts there was at least one smart person who would have guessed to bring a ladder!

The most valuable thing

Have you ever thought, dear friend, what is more valuable in life Total? You will find the answer in the following parable about friendship. I'm sure he doesn't disappoint.

One person in childhood was very friendly with an old neighbor.

But as time went on, college and hobbies appeared, then work and personal life. Every minute the young man was busy and he didn't have time neither remember the past, nor even stay with loved ones.

One day he learned that his neighbor had died and suddenly remembered: the old man taught him a lot, trying to replace the boy's dead father. Feeling his guilt, he came to the funeral.

In the evening, after the burial, the man entered the empty house deceased. Everything was the same as many years ago ...

Just a small golden box in which, according to old man, the most valuable thing for him was kept, disappeared from the table. Thinking that she was taken by one of the few relatives, the man left the house.

However, two weeks later he received the package. Seeing her neighbor's name, the man shuddered and opened the box.

Inside was the same golden box. In it were engraved gold pocket watch: "Thank you for your time with me."

And he realized that the most valuable thing for the old man was time, spent with my little friend.

Since then, the man has tried to devote as much time as possible to wife and son.

Life is not measured by the number of breaths. It's measured the number of moments that make us hold our breath.

Time is slipping away from us every second. And it has to be spent right now.

Read also:

• Favorite friendship songs,
• Scenario for Friendship Day.

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