Reading and Writing about Short Fiction
Preface. 1. READING AND WRITING. Reading Fiction. Reading for Writing. Cynthia Ozick, The Shawl. From Reading to Writing. Topic and Thesis. Considering Your Audience. Expository Prose. Informational. Analytic. Persuasive. Writing the College Essay. The Discrete Paragraph. Chronology. Spatial Sequence. Comparison and Contrast. Enumeration. Order of Climax. Writing Assignment: A Paragraph. The Essay. The Beginning. Middle Paragraphs. The Conclusion. Sample Essay: "The Meaning of Powerlessness." Writing Assignment: An Essay. Writing to Rewriting. Unity and Coherence. Proofreading and Titling. 2. FICTION/THEME. The Realm of Fiction. Fact and Fiction. Fiction and the Written Word. What's the Big Idea? Theme Versus Moral. Articulating Fiction's Themes. Summary Suggestions: Understanding Theme. Writing on Theme. General Writing Assignments. James Thurber, "The Owl Who Was God." James Thurber, "The Unicorn in the Garden." Ursula K. Le Guin, "The Ones Who Walk Away from Omelas." Villiers de L'Isle-Adam, "The Doctor's Heroism" (Translated by Roger B. Goodman). Elizabeth Taylor, "The First Death of Her Life." Stephen Crane, "The Snake." Langston Hughes, "On the Road." Mikhail Zoshchenko, "What Good Are Relatives?" (Translated by Sidney Monas). Yukio Mishima, "Swaddling Clothes" (Translated by Ivan Morris). Hernando Tellez, "Just Lather, That's All" (Translated by Angel Flores). Jorge Luis Borges, "Theme of the Traitor and Hero" (Translated by Anthony Kerrigan). 3. PLOT/SITUATION. Plot as Causal Sequence. Means and Ends. Plot and the Other Elements of Fiction. Conflict and Happy Endings. Summary Suggestions: Understanding Plot/Situation. Writing on Plot/Situation. General Writing Assignments. Anton Chekhov, "The Lottery Ticket" (Translated by Constance Garnett). Somerset Maugham, "A String of Beads." Edgar Allan Poe, "The Tell-Tale Heart." Dylan Thomas, "After the Fair." John O'Hara, "Sportmanship." Zora Neale Hurston, "Book of Harlem." James Thurber, "The Night the Bed Fell." Grace Paley, "A Conversation with My Father." Julio Cortazar, "Continuity of Parks" (Translated by Paul Blackburn). Gabriel Garcia Marquez, "Bitterness for Three Sleepwalkers" (Translated by Gregory Rabassa). D.H. Lawrence, "Smile." 4. CHARACTERIZATION. Fiction's People. Modes of Characterization. Types of Character. Character and Theme. Summary Suggestions: Understanding Characters. Writing on Characters. General Writing Assignments. Warren Miller, "Chaos, Disorder and the Late Show." Edward Proffitt, "Like It Is." Katherine Mansfield, "Miss Brill." Katherine Mansfield, "Late at Night." Grace Paley, "Wants." Jesse Stuart, "Love." Anton Chekhov, "After the Theatre" (Translated by Ronald Hingley). Angelica Gibbs, "The Test." Isaac Babel, "My First Goose" (Translated by Walter Morison). Richard Brautigan, "The World War I Los Angeles Airplane." Jorge Luis Borges, "The Waiting" (Translated by James E. Irby). 5. NARRATION/POINT OF VIEW. The Narrator. Modes of Narration. First-Person Narration. First-Person Credible. First Person Unreliable. Third-Person Narration. Third-Person Omniscient. Third-Person Subjective. Third-Person Objective. Narrator, Author, and Story. Summary Suggestions: Understanding Narration. Writing on Narrators and Narration. General Writing Assignments. Dorothy Parker, "You Were Perfectly Fine." Mikhail Zoshchenko, "A Confession" (Translated by John W. Strahan and Rosalind Zoglin). H.H. Munro, "Sredni Vashtar." E.M. Forster, "Mr. Andrews." Katherine Mansfield, "Six Years After." Isaac Babel, "The Sin of Jesus" (Translated by Walter Morison). William E. Barrett, "Senor Payroll." William March, "Personal Letter." Anton Chekhov, "At Sea: A Sailor's Story" (Translated by Ann Dunnigan). William Carlos Williams, "The Buffalos." Samuel Beckett, "Stories and Texts for Nothing, 4." William Carlos Williams, "Frankie the Newspaperman." Logan Pearsall Smith, "The Vicar of Lynch." 6. MOOD/IRONY/STYLE. Interpreting Mood. Incongruity: Life and Fiction. Verbal Irony. Circumstantial Irony. Dramatic Irony. Style: The Medium and the Message. Summary Suggestions: Understanding Mood/Irony/Style. Writing on Mood/Irony/Style. General Writing Assignments. Octavio Paz, "The Blue Bouquet" (Translated by Eliot Weinberger). Sean O'Faolain, "Innocence." Somerset Maugham, "The Ant and the Grasshopper." Somerset Maugham, "Appointment in Samarra." Guy de Maupassant, "The Venus of Braniza" (Translated by M. Walter Dunne). Augusto Monterroso, "The Eclipse" (Translated by Wilfrido H. Corral). Guy de Maupassant, "The Jewels of M. Lantin" (Translated by Roger B. Goodman). William Carlos Williams, "The Use of Force." Donald Barthelme, "Tales of the Swedish Army." Elinor Goulding Smith, "Story for the Slicks." Peter Handke, "Abstraction of the Ball That Fell in the River" (Translated by Michael Roloff). William Faulkner, "An Innocent at Rinkside." Ernest Hemingway, "A Clean, Well-Lighted Place." Virginia Woolf, "A Haunted House." Kate Chopin, "The Story of an Hour." 7. SETTING/SYMBOL. Of Time and Place. The Literary Impulse. Recognizing Symbols. Interpreting Symbols. Summary Suggestions: Understanding Setting and Symbol. Writing on Symbols and Symbolism. General Writing Assignments. Nigel Dennis, "The Pukey." James Stevenson, "Oberfest." Graham Greene, "I Spy." Alan Paton, "The Waste Land." Guy de Maupassant, "At Sea" (Translated by Andrew R. MacAndrew). Stephen Crane, "An Episode of War." William Carlos Williams, "Danse Pseudmacabre." James Joyce, "Eveline." James Joyce, "Araby." Sean O'Faolain, "The Trout." Katherine Anne Porter, "The Grave." Alice Walker, "The Flowers." Franz Kafka, "First Sorrow" (Translated by Willa and Edwin Muir). Vladimir Nabokov, "Signs and Symbols." SOME LONGER STORIES FOR FURTHER READING. Flannery O'Connor, "Good Country People." Richard Wright, "The Man Who Was Almost a Man." William Faulkner, "That Evening Sun." Eudora Welty, "Petrified Man." Sherwood Anderson, "I Want to Know Why." Katherine Mansfield, "Bliss." Henry James, "The Tree of Knowledge." Alice Walker, "Everyday Use." D.H. Lawrence, "The Rocking-Horse Winner." Stephen Crane, "The Open Boat." APPENDIX: A Brief Guide to the Use and Documentation of Sources and Related Matters. Using Sources. Plagiarism. Referring to Titles. Continuous vs. Blocked Quotations. Changing Punctuation. Ellipsis and Square Brackets. Fitting Quotations with Contexts. Introducing Quotations. Quotation, Summary, and Paraphrase. Citing Sources. Citing Continuous vs. Blocked Quotations. Three Problem Spots. The Works Cited List. Books and Journal Articles. Anthologies. A Work in an Anthology. Reference Books and Anonymous Material. A Newspaper Article. Two or More Works by the Same Author. Sample Works Cited List and Sample Manuscript. ALTERNATE GROUPINGS FOR COMPARISON: THEME AND MODE. GLOSSARY OF LITERARY AND WRITING TERMS. WORKS CITED. INDEX OF AUTHORS AND TITLES.