Introduction to Literature
Lesson Three: Reading Short Stories
Love
Margarette R. Connor
Outline
• Short story critical terms
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plot
character
setting
point of view
symbolism
theme
style, diction, irony
• Biography of O. Henry
Short stories aren’t as “scary” as poetry
• Because they are narratives, they “look”
more “normal” than poetry.
• We read narratives every day--in the
newspaper, in magazines, so the form looks
more comfortable.
“When you reread a classic you do not
see more in the book than you did before;
you see more in you than was there
before.”
--Clifton Fadiman
• Fadiman was a writer, critic, editor, and radio quiz
show host. He was also very influential in
shaping American literary taste.
• For more than 50 years, Fadiman
influenced what Americans read,
serving as a senior judge for the
Book-of-the-Month Club
A note on critical vocabulary:
• Things like diction, tone, allusion and
symbols can all still be important, so
keep them in mind as you read
throughout the course.
• But we’re now going to add some new
words to your critical arsenal.
Plot
• How a story is organized, how the author arranges
events.
• These events can be arranged in a number of orders:
– chronological,
– flashback,
– even in loosely arranged views.
• When we discuss plot in short stories we often talk
about events building to a climax, which is the point
where the crisis that has been building reaches its
highest point and is somehow resolved. It comes very
close to the end of the story as what follows is usually
tying up the loose ends and easing us out of the world
of the story.
Character
• These are the “people” or sometimes even the
animals (like Jack London’s Buck in “The Call of the
Wild”) who make up the story.
• They are what make us care about the story.
• How a writer creates a character is called
characterization and as critical readers, we look for
clues into a character through things like
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speech patterns,
dress,
possessions
actions.
Two important character terms:
• Protagonist, or sometimes, “the hero,”
though in many stories, the protagonist isn’t
too heroic!
• Antagonist, or the “bad guy”. The one who
is the adversary of the protagonist.
Setting
• When and where a story takes place.
• Sometimes the setting can almost become a character
itself, as in Faulkner’s South or Hawthorne’s Puritanera New England.
• The major elements of setting are
– the time,
– place and
– social environment that act as a frame around the characters.
• If we are sensitive to the time and place in which a
story takes place, it can help us understand the
character’s actions.
Atmosphere
• An author can also use setting to
establish atmosphere, the mood a work
will take.
• In Poe’s “Fall of the House of Usher,”
the decaying house and its
surroundings echo the decay of
Roderick Usher’s mind.
Point of view
• This tells us who’s eyes we are seeing
the story through, the person we call the
narrator.
• The narrator has a very important
function, because how he or she sees
things may very well color how we see
things.
• We have to be aware of where we are
getting our information.
Two different types
• Third person,
– has three types
• First person,
– has two types.
Third person narrator
• A non-participant in the action of
the story, but sometimes the author
limits the view.
• Includes omniscient, limited
omniscient and stream of
conscious.
Omniscient narrator
• All-knowing.
– The narrator can tell us anything that’s happening at any
time in the story.
– If the narrator can go into all the character’s thoughts
and tell us what’s going on with their emotions and
thought-process, we call that editorial omniscience.
– In contrast, the narrator may only show us what’s going
on in terms of the actions and words of a character,
leaving us to draw our own conclusions about motive.
That’s called neutral omniscience.
Limited omniscient narrator
• The author restricts the narrator to a
single perspective of either a major or a
minor character.
– Sometimes the narrator can see into more
than one character, especially in longer
works, but the limited space of the short
story form usually ensures that the author
limits the narrator to one.
Stream-of consciousness
• Developed by modern writers.
• We see the unedited thoughts of the
narrator, with :
– logical jumps,
– fragments
– fleeting thoughts all included.
• The most famous example of this style
is James Joyce’s Ulysses, which is
indeed incredibly challenging to read.
A section from Ulysses describing a funeral:
• Coffin now. Got before us, dead as he is. Horse
looking round at it with him plume skeowways
[twisted]. Dull eye: collar tight on his neck,
pressing on a bloodvessel or something. Do they
know what they cart out of here everyday? Must
be twenty or thirty funerals everyday. Then Mount
Jerome for the protestants. Funerals all over the
world everywhere every minute. Shovelling them
under by the cartload doublequick.
Thousands every hour.
Too many in the world.
First person narrator
• Either a major character or a minor
character, depending on how much
the author wants to give away to the
reader.
• This is the easiest to spot, as the
narrator speaks in terms of “I”
Unreliable narrator
• One whose views do not match
those of the author.
• This type of narrator is a filter, and
we have to realize that there are
other conclusions that we might
have to make for ourselves.
Naïve narrator
• Told from the point of view of an
innocent or a child.
• An example is Mark Twain’s famous
Huck Finn.
– He tells us the story, but it is from a
child’s point of view and as readers, we
must always remember this fact.
Symbolism
• We discussed symbols when we
went over the first lesson, and
symbolism is finding the meaning
of symbols.
• Two different kinds
– conventional
– literary
Conventional symbols
• Widely recognized by a culture or
society.
• Examples are
– a nation’s flag,
– the Christian cross,
– the Jewish Star of David,
– the Buddhist cross
– the Nazi swastika
Literary symbols
• can include conventional meanings, but
they can also be used specifically by an
author.
• A literary symbol can be
– a setting,
– character,
– action,
– object name or
– anything else in a work that functions on more
than one level.
Theme
• The central idea or meaning of a
story.
• It’s the point an author is trying to
make.
• As simple as this sounds, it isn’t
always simple finding the theme.
Some help finding theme
• Take a look at the title of the story. It can
often point the way.
• Look for details that are potential symbols.
Look at names, places, things. All these
can help point the way.
• Decide whether or not the protagonist has
undergone any changes or develops any
insights into life/humans/so on.
• Remember that a theme won’t be one word
like love. It will be a statement about love.
Style
• How a writer writes.
– After we’ve been reading literature a while, we can
spot a Hemingway story or one by Jewett or
Faulkner.
– All are American writers, but all have their own way
of putting things down on paper.
Diction
• As with poetry, this is the language a
writer uses. While part of this is style, a
good writer will change diction.
– A countess won’t sound like a chambermaid
if the writer is paying attention, unless, of
course the countess was a chambermaid
who “married up”.
• Writers use diction to shade in characters
Irony
• A device that reveals a reality
different from what appears to be
true.
• There are three different kinds of
irony that we’ll discuss.
Verbal irony
• If my friend is very dirty from
playing football, and I say, “You
are looking so fresh today,” that’s
verbal irony.
– Very common in today’s speech.
• If I mean to hurt someone with my
verbal irony, it becomes sarcasm.
Situational irony
• Happens in literature when the
reality isn’t what we think it is.
– For example, in Charlotte Perkins
Gilman’s “The Yellow Wallpaper” it
looks as if the narrator has a caring
husband, but through trying to cure
her, he makes her worse.
Dramatic irony
• Occurs when protagonist says something
or believes something that the reader
understands is not true.
– Flannery O’Connor uses this device quite a bit
in her writing.
• For example, in “Revelation” the white Mrs. Turpin
thinks of herself as a godly woman who is better
than the “niggers” and “white trash” around her.
• As readers, we see that her statements show how
ungodly she really is.
O. Henry
(William Sydney Porter)
1862-1910
• American short story
writer
Biographical data
• B. in North Carolina, the son of a doctor.
• mother died when he was three
– raised by his paternal grandmother and
paternal aunt, who ran a school.
• Left school at 15
– trained to be a licensed pharmacist with his
uncle.
Young adulthood
• At 20, moved to Texas for health
reasons.
• He worked at a sheep ranch for a while.
• Moved to Austin.
• Married there in 1882.
• Couple had a daughter.
Writing and life in Texas
• 1884 started a humorous weekly The
Rolling Stone.
• Also started drinking heavily.
• Worked as a clerk for the First National
Bank.
• After a few years the paper failed, so
started work at the Houston Post as a
reporter and columnist.
Trouble and a change of life
• Porter was accused of embezzling funds dating back to
his employment at the First National Bank.
• Leaving his wife and young daughter in Austin, Porter fled
to New Orleans, then to Honduras.
• After a year, he returned because of his wife's
deteriorating health. She died soon afterward.
• Early 1898 Porter was found guilty of the banking charges
– though there is still some question of his guilt
• Sentenced to five years in an Ohio prison.
A new career in prison
• It was in prison that he started to write short
stories to support his daughter, Margaret.
• Also started to use the name O. Henry to hide
from his shameful past.
• He spent three years in prison, and had
published 12 stories while he was there.
– People loved the details about Central America
and what was still “the wild west” that he put into
his tales.
After prison
• After leaving prison, he moved to New
York City, where many of his later
stories are set, including “The Gift of the
Magi”
• Some pictures of what
New York looked
then.
like
Turn of the century New York
• Della and Jim’s apartment might have been
in a building like these.
Interpretation: The Gift of the
Magi
• Actually published in 1905
• Story about Christmas
• It is set in New York City
• One dollar and eighty-seven cents. That was
all. And sixty cents of it was in pennies.
Pennies saved one and two at a time we
learn that this girl is young girl has got a
dollar and eighty-seven cents and tomorrow
will be Christmas. And that’s the dilemma.
• She tried her hardest to save money; penny
by penny. She cried, she’s so upset.
• Which instigates the moral reflection that
life is made up of sobs, sniffles, and smiles,
with sniffles predominating.
• a card bearing the name "Mr. James
Dillingham Young. broken-down
apartment building
• The "Dillingham" had been flung to the breeze
during a former period of prosperity when its
possessor was being paid $30 per week. Now,
when the income was shrunk to $20, though, they
were thinking seriously of contracting to a modest
and unassuming D. But whenever Mr. James
Dillingham Young came home and reached his flat
above he was called "Jim" and greatly hugged by
Mrs. James Dillingham Young, already introduced
to you as Della. Which is all very good.
• Della finished her cry and attended to her
cheeks with the powder rag. She stood by
the window and looked out dully at a gray
cat walking a gray fence in a gray backyard.
she repeats the GRAY! reflects the
mood she is in; also the reality the place she
lived; struggling the poverty.
• Something fine and rare and sterling--something
just a little bit near to being worthy of the honor of
being owned by Jim.
• Beautiful hair; gold watch
• "Will you buy my hair?" asked Della. "I buy
hair," said Madame. "Take yer hat off and let's
have a sight at the looks of it." Down rippled the
brown cascade. "Twenty dollars," said Madame,
lifting the mass with a practised hand.
• Oh, and the next two hours tripped by on rosy
wings. Forget the hashed metaphor. She was
ransacking the stores for Jim's present.
• When Della reached home her intoxication gave
way a little to prudence and reason. She got out
her curling irons and lighted the gas and went to
work repairing the ravages made by generosity
added to love. Which is always a tremendous task,
dear friends--a mammoth task.
• The magi, as you know, were wise men-wonderfully wise men--who brought gifts to the
Babe in the manger. They invented the art of
giving Christmas presents. Being wise, their gifts
were no doubt wise ones, possibly bearing the
privilege of exchange in case of duplication. And
here I have lamely related to you the uneventful
chronicle of two foolish children in a flat who
most unwisely sacrificed for each other the
greatest treasures of their house. But in a last word
to the wise of these days let it be said that of all
who give gifts these two were the wisest. O all
who give and receive gifts, such as they are
wisest. Everywhere they are wisest. They are the
magi.