The author, Kate Chopin, opens the story with the scene in which Mrs. Mallard is about to be informed by her sister, Josephine, of Mr. Mallard's death. "Knowing that Mrs. Mallard was afflicted with a heart trouble, great care was taken to break to her as gently as possible the news of her husb...

Gilgamesh and the Inevitable Time has been very kind to the Epic of Gilgamesh. Four thousand years after its inscription upon clay tablets, the story still has the power to move us, to help us contemplate what it means to be human. Its perspective of death is both humbling and po...