Creative Writing Commons^™

Kingdom, Phylum, Class, Order, Family, Genus, Species [Short Stories], Leslie Samuels Entsminger

English Theses & Dissertations

The stories in this compilation, some in a realistic vein and others set in alternate realities, explore themes of loss by examining various “world gone wrong” scenarios where the main characters lose some form of control. By classifying the stories according to Taxonomic nomenclature (Kingdom, Phylum, etc.,) the stories slot into categories that both hint at the content of the story and imply a universality of human experience. Throughout the compilation, protagonists, attempting to understand their loss, must work out how to proceed—either in concert with or against—the ethical framework created within the story.