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Reading the Short Story |
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I. Short stories evolved from the various forms of narrative. 1. Because the short story comes from so many different sources from all over the world, it is difficult to determine where it originated. A. In the United States, during the nineteenth century, a group of writers -- in particular Nathaniel Hawthorne and Edgar Allan Poe -- took it seriously and exploited its fictional possibilities. 01. Because the short story was embraced so readily and developed so quickly in the United States, it is commonly, although not quite accurately, thought of as an American literary form. II. The novel is an extended piece of narrative fiction; the short story is limited in length and scope. 1. These limitations account for the characteristics that distinguish the short story from longer prose forms. A. Unlike the novelist, the short writer cannot devote a great deal of space to developing a highly complex plot or a large number of characters. III. The short story begins close to or at the height of action and develops only one character in depth. 1. Usually concentrating on a single incident, the writer develops a character by showing his or her responses to events. A. This attention to character development, as well as its detailed description of setting, is what distinguishes the short story from earlier short narrative forms, such as folk tales and fairy tales. 01. In many contemporary stories, a character experiences an epiphany, a moment of illumination in which something hidden or not understood becomes immediately clear. IV. Today the term short story is applied to a wide variety of prose narratives: 1. short stories such as A. Charles Baxter’s “Gryphon,” which runs about twelve pages. B. Luisa Valenzuela’s “All about Suicide,” under five pages in length. C. Long stories, such as Franz Kafka’s “The Metamorphosis,” may more accurately be called short novels or novellas 2. The possibilities of the short story are infinite. A short story may be
crime and punishment comic or tragic war marriage sexual awakening its subject may be growing up death any number of other human concerns
an imaginary world the old West rural America the jungles of Uruguay nineteenth-century Russia pre-communist China, or modern Egypt
3. The story may have a conventional form, with a definite beginning, middle, and end, or it may be structured as a letter, as a diary entry, or even as a collection of random notes. 4. The narrator of a story may be trustworthy or unreliable, involved in the action or a disinterested observer, sympathetic or deserving of scorn, extremely ignorant or highly insightful, limited in vision or able to see inside the minds of all the characters. A. The conventions of short fiction are constantly changing.
V. We read fiction for enjoyment of several kinds: 1. For insight into a time other than our own. Good literature is like window to another era. Through it we see what life was like for those alive at the time. Reading about their thoughts, we come to realize that the only thing unique about human beings is that we are all the same. There is no fundamental difference between you and the people who lived during Shakespeare's time. Our surroundings have changed, like sets on a stage, be the characters remain in this play of life. This is why we read Shakespeare more than four hundred years after his death. Though he lived in another time, he knows us well. 2. Enlightenment 3. Aesthetic pleasure VI. Studying fiction,-- that is, reflecting on and discussing fiction – can help us get more out of the text, and thus more out of future texts. We can increase our awareness of 1. The effect the story has on the reader 2. The writer’s intention 3. The qualities which make the story memorable (or otherwise) VII. There are basic reading skills necessary for reading fiction with understanding. 1. Most of these skills are acquired automatically through extensive reading. 2. However, if you haven’t read much, you may lack some of these skills. VIII. First, you need to be able to figure out what is going on. 1. If you finish a story and realize that you don’t really know what happened, read it over. A. It’s better to read a story fast twice than read it slowly once. IX. Second, you need to be able to draw inferences from a story. 1. Such-and-such happened – but what does it mean? “X” character did such-and-such –what does this tell us about “X” character? A. The best way to develop the ability to abstract from a story is to ask yourself questions as you go along. 01. Don’t be a passive reader. 2. As you read a story, and especially after you finish, ask yourself what the story says to you. A. What parts of the story, scenes, images, stand out? B. Why? C. What is your relation to the story? D. Do you identify with the characters? E. Do you like them? F. Do you dislike them? 3. Try to discover what it is in our own experience that triggers your response to the story. A. For Example: 01. When you read about the elderly Granny Weatherall on her deathbed in Katherine Anne Porter’s story, “The Jilting of Granny Weatherall,” do you think of someone in your life that has died? 02. Does this story elicit feelings and thoughts you have had during such a difficult time? 03. Does this story bring those thoughts and feelings back to you? 04. If your response to these questions is flippant and something like this: “The story don’t mean nothin’ to me,” or “It don’t matter how much I read it I don’t see nothing’.” B. First, your grammar needs work, and second, you need to ask me about the meaning of this quote from William Blake: “Folly is the cloak of knavery.” X. In order to discuss a story or novel, we need a standard vocabulary to describe the text. 1. Vocabulary allows us to stand aside from the text momentarily, in order to identify and understand those elements of the text. XI. Plot: The plan of the story. 1. Part of the plot is “what happens?” I 2. t is helpful to sum up the action of the story in one complete sentence. A. For example: “On her deathbed, Granny Weatherall reviews the conduct of her life and measures it against her religious belief only to discover her salvation is not as certain as she once believed.” 01. The important thing about the one sentence summary is that it focuses the action of the story, so that you can then ask, a. “What does it all mean? b. What is significant about these events? c. What real change has taken place in the lives of the characters, in their relationship to one another, or in their relationship to the world? d. What is the main conflict (Granny against life? Granny against God? Granny against herself?) e. Does the story build to a climax, where the conflict is exemplified and/or resolved? f. Could the story have ended differently? g. What would this have changed? h. What are the important scenes in the story? i. Does the writer set up any important contracts: between characters, places, times, ideas, ways of life? j. How do the events in the story relate to one another? k. How do they relate to the story as a whole? l. What conflicts occur in the story? m. How are these conflicts developed or resolved? n. Does the story include any noteworthy plot devices, such as flashbacks or foreshadowing? XII. Character: the people, human-like animals, cyborgs, or whatever are involved in the plot. 1. Major characters will usually be complex and fully developed; if they are not, readers will not care what happens to them. 2. The reader may be introduced to the characters by means of what a minor character says or does; what the characters themselves say or do; what the author says. 3. Fiction has several types of characters: A. Flat Character: 01. barely one or two traits are developed, stereotypical, and can be summed up in one sentence. B. Round Character: 01. well developed, closely involved in and responsive to the action, complex and many-sided, and may take several pages to analyze and develop. a. Readers expect characters to behave as “real people” in their situations might behave. b. As such they are not perfect and the flaws revealed --greed, gullibility, naiveté, shyness, a quick temper, or a lack of insight or judgment or tolerance or even intelligence -- make them believable. C. Stock Character: 01. a common, stereotyped figure. D. Dynamic Character: 01. one which undergoes a permanent change in some aspect of personality or outlook. (Mr. Scrooge was a developing character.) E. Static Character: 01. one who is unchanging even though encountering the same challenges as the dynamic character; the same at the end of the story as at the beginning. a. Flat characters tend to be static, but even complex, well-developed major characters may be static. b. The point of the story may even hinge on a character’s inability to change. ' For example: Emily in “A Rose for Emily” is unwilling or unable to accept that the world around her and the people in it have changed. F. Ask these questions about Characters: 01. What are their most striking traits? 02. How do these individuals interact with one another? 03. What motivates them? 04. Are the characters fully developed, or are they stereotypes whose sole purpose is to express a single trait (good, evil, generosity) or to move the plot along? 05. Whose side is the writer on? That is, which characters does she intend the reader to identify/sympathize/empathize with? 06. What are their most striking traits? 07. How do these individuals interact with one another? 08. What motivates them? 09. Are the characters fully developed, or are they stereotypes whose sole purpose is to express a single trait (good, evil, generosity) or to move the plot along? XIII. Setting: 1. the time and place the story takes place, but it is more than just the approximate time and place in which the work is set; setting also encompasses a wide variety of physical and cultural elements. A. Where a story takes place (on a tropical island; in a dungeon; at a crowded party) influences our interpretation of the story’s events and characters. 01. When a work takes place (during the French Revolution; the Vietnam War; today, or in the future) is equally important. B. Sometimes a story’s central conflict is between the protagonist and the setting. 01. For example: a. Alice in Wonderland b. A Northerner in the South c. The naive among the sophisticated 2. At what time period and in what geographic location does the action of the story occur? A. How does the setting affect the characters of the story? B. How does the setting affect the characters of the story? C. How does it determine the relationships among the characters? D. How does the setting affect the plot? E. Does the setting create a mood for the story? F. In what way does the setting reinforce the central ideas that the story examines? XIV. Point of View: 1. the angle from which the story is told. A. Third person, Omniscient: 01. the narrator has the ability to jump from one character to another and the power to tell readers what each character is thinking and feeling at all times. a. This viewpoint may or may not be reliable. B. Third person, Limited: 01. the author is telling the story through the eyes of one of his characters and is “limited” to only the knowledge of that character (uses third person “he/she” in telling the story). C. First Person: 01. personal, limited, but allowing a closeness between the story and the audience. a. The author is not telling the story; instead, it is the character who is speaking (called the narrator) which may or may not be the author. D. Objective: 01. distant, formal, removed tone that does little to suggest an influence by who is telling the story. 2. To determine point of view, ask yourself these questions: A. What person or persons are telling the story? B. Is the story told in the first person (I or we) or in the third person (he, she, or they )? C. Does the narrator see from various perspectives, or is the story restricted to the perspective of one person--a major character, a minor character, or just an observer? D. How much does the narrator know about the events in the story? E. Does the narrator present an accurate or inaccurate picture of events? F. Does the narrator understand the full significance of the story he or she is telling? XV. Style, Tone, and Language: 1. The tone of a story is like the tone of a voice; the quality (of speaking or writing) conveys feeling –without necessarily stating that feeling directly. A. The feeling may be nostalgia, gloom, sadness, cheerfulness, bitterness, anger, disappointment, joy, hate, resentment, and so forth. B. The feeling may be expressed with varying degrees of commitment and/or distance: seriousness, humor, or irony. C. Tone expresses the attitude of the narrator or author of a work toward the subject matter, characters, or audience. 01. Word choice and sentence structure help to create a work’s tone. 02. Tone in fiction is conveyed by: a. Mood: ' Does the writer take his material seriously? ' If he laughs, is it sympathetic laughter? XVI. Irony: 1. always indicates a discrepancy; it is the unexpected. A. Irony projects a “double vision” – we see the appearance of things, but also the reality behind the appearance. B. Does the writer say one thing, but imply the opposite? C. Does the write point out the contradictions between human goals and achievements –between our ideals and the realities of life. 2. Irony takes these forms: A. Verbal: an incongruity that is known and intended by a character B. Dramatic: a discrepancy not known or directly intended C. Cosmic: a huge, long-range incongruity D. Attitude toward the reader: 01. How does the writer stand in relation to you? 02. Is she speaking from a position of great authority? 03. Is she talking eye-to-eye? 04. Is she asking you for a favor? 05. Is she trying to convince you of something? XVII. Imagery: 1. What kinds of imagery does the writer associate with particular characters? 2. With particular ideas? 3. Does the writer treat some characters or objects as “larger than life” (symbolism)? XVIII. Style: 1. one of the qualities that gives a work of literature its individual personality. A. It is the way a writer selects and arranges words to say what he or she wants to say. 01. Style encompasses elements of word choice, syntax, sentence length and structure, presence, frequency, and prominence of imagery and figures of speech. a. Does the writer make any unusual use of diction or syntax? b. Does the writer use imaginative figures of speech? Patterns of imagery? c. What styles or levels of speech are associated with particular characters? d. What words or phrases are repeated throughout the work? e. Is the story’s style plain or elaborate? f. Does the narrator’s tone reveal his or her attitude toward characters or events? g. Are there any discrepancies between the narrator’s attitude and the attitude of the author? h. Is the tone of the story playful, humorous, ironic, satirical, serious, somber, solemn, bitter, condescending, formal, informal -- or does the tone suggest some other attitude?
XIX. Symbolism and Allegory: 1. Symbolism is some person, place, or thing that echoes or resonates through the story, taking on a deeper, enlarged meaning. A. An Allegory communicates a doctrine, message, or moral principle by making it into a narrative in which the characters personify ideas, concepts, qualities, or other abstractions. 01. Thus, an allegory is a story with two parallel and consistent levels of meaning--one literal and one figurative. a. Does the author use any objects or ideas symbolically? b. What characters or objects in the story are part of an allegorical framework? c. How does an object establish its symbolic or allegorical significance in the story? d. Does the same object have different meanings at different places in the story? e. Are the symbols or allegorical figures conventional or unusual? f. At what points in the story do symbols or allegorical figures appear? XX. Themes: 1. the controlling idea or central insight of the story. A. It is the unifying generalization about life, stated or implied. 01. What is the central theme? 02. How is the idea or concept expressed in the work? 03. What elements of the story develop the central theme? 04. How do character, plot, setting, point of view, and symbols reinforce the central theme? 05. How does the title of the story contribute to readers’ understanding of the central theme? 06. What other themes are explored?
XXI. Experience a story as fully as possible. 1. Allow yourself to respond honestly to a story. 2. Analyze your response in terms of your own experience and the text of the story. 3. You should be able to abstract: “This story is about (general idea).” XXII. Look at the text more closely in the light of the questions above. 1. Remember to summarize the action of the story in one sentence. A. Ask yourself: B. What qualities of character and personality does the writer approve of? C. Disapprove of? D. Is the writer criticizing some aspect of humanity? E. Society? F. Life? G. What ideas is the writer implying about humanity? H. People’s relation to one another? I. To God? J. To nature? K. To their inner selves? XXIII. Now go back to your notes. 1. You should be able to say something about the essence of the story. A. At this point, you may be ready to make a value judgment about the story.
Literature, Reading, Reacting, Writing. 4th Ed (2000) Eds. Kirszner, Laurie G., and Stephen R. Mandell. Fort Worth, TX: Harcourt College Publishers. (40-41)
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