Short Stories About Fathers: 10 Classics Explained
Quick answer: Ten classic short stories about fathers, from The Judgment and The Egg to Simon's Papa, The Stationmaster and Kabuliwala, summarised and compared for readers and writers.
Father stories are read by sons and daughters trying to work something out, and by fathers who suspect they are being written about. The writers here range from Kafka, whose fathers pass sentence, to Maupassant, whose blacksmith simply picks a boy up and takes him home.
The collection begins with the fathers who judge, moves through the ones who fail and the ones who lose, and ends with a father in a railway carriage arguing about his son. Each title links to a page that summarises the story and explains its ending.
The stories
The Judgment by Franz Kafka. Georg Bendemann, a young merchant newly engaged, goes into his father's dim bedroom to tell him about a letter and finds the old man suddenly enormous, standing on the bed. The father's verdict is carried out within a page.
The Egg by Sherwood Anderson. A father who has failed at chicken farming opens a restaurant and decides he must be entertaining to succeed. One night, alone with a single customer, he tries to make an egg stand on end and then to squeeze it into a bottle.
Simon's Papa by Guy de Maupassant. Simon, who has no father, is mocked at school and goes to the river meaning to drown himself, and meets a blacksmith on the way. He asks the man a question, and the man answers it.
The Stationmaster by Alexander Pushkin. Samson Vyrin's pretty daughter drives off with a passing hussar, and the old man walks to Petersburg to bring her home. He is shown the door with money in his cuff, and throws it away.
The Little Girl by Katherine Mansfield. Kezia stammers when her father speaks to her and tears up his important papers to stuff a birthday pincushion. He beats her with a ruler; weeks later, with her mother away, she wakes screaming and he carries her to his bed.
Kabuliwala by Rabindranath Tagore. A Calcutta writer watches his small daughter befriend a towering Afghan pedlar, and is amused until the man is taken to prison. When he returns years later, on the wedding day, the writer understands what the pedlar has been carrying in his pocket.
The Fly by Katherine Mansfield. The boss keeps a photograph of his dead son on the desk and has not been able to weep for years. An old friend's remark about a Belgian cemetery sends him to his chair, where a fly has fallen into the ink.
War by Luigi Pirandello. In a railway carriage full of parents whose sons have gone to the front, a fat man lectures the others that a son who dies young for his country dies content. A woman asks him whether his own son is really dead.
A Horseman in the Sky by Ambrose Bierce. Carter Druse, a Virginian who chose the Union, is on sentry duty above a valley when a Confederate officer on horseback appears on the cliff edge. He aims at the horse and fires; afterward he tells the sergeant who the rider was.
The Shroud by Premchand. Ghisu and his son Madhav sit outside their hut roasting stolen potatoes while Madhav's wife dies inside. Father and son together spend the shroud money on a meal, and the father teaches the son how to think about it.
Reading them together
The collection's argument is that a father in fiction is a verdict waiting to be delivered, and the stories differ in who delivers it. Kafka's father pronounces sentence; Bierce's son does; Pirandello's father pronounces one on himself and then hears it. Anderson and Pushkin write the fathers who fail without anyone judging them, which is harder to read.
Kabuliwala and Simon's Papa are the two where fatherhood is chosen rather than given, and they are the collection's only two happy endings.
If you want to write about fathers
What writers can take from this
- Read The Judgment and The Egg together; one father is terrifying and one is pitiable, and both are ruinous.
- Simon's Papa and Kabuliwala are the two to read when the others have grown heavy.
- The Fly and War are both about fathers of dead soldiers; read them on the same day.
- A Horseman in the Sky is short and its ending is a single sentence; do not skip to it.
- The Shroud pairs with The Egg for two fathers teaching their sons the wrong lesson well.
Try it yourself
Write a story in which a father and a grown child spend an hour together doing a practical task, and the thing neither of them says is the only thing the reader hears.
Questions
What is the best short story about fathers?
The Judgment is the most studied, and Kabuliwala the most loved. The Egg is the American writers' choice.
Which short stories about fathers are good for students?
Simon's Papa, Kabuliwala, A Horseman in the Sky and War are short and clear, with endings that start discussion. The Fly suits older students.
Which classic story about fathers is the shortest?
War by Pirandello, at about fifteen hundred words. A Horseman in the Sky is roughly the same.
By the Writory editorial team, reviewed by working writers. Updated September 2026.
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