The American Short Story

A presentation byHenrik Karrie

Justus Liebig Universität GießenWintersemester 2011/12

07 December 2011

predecessors

oral story-telling traditions produced epics (Homer´s Iliad and Odyssey - Troyan War - King Agamemnon vs. Achilles) 800 BC in form of rhyming or rhythmic verse

fables by Aesop (Greek slave 600 BC) stories with a moral to criticize the system

anecdotes in the Roman Empire (44 BC to 1453 AD) functioned as a parable, a brief realistic narrative that embodies a point. These anecdotes were collected in the 13th or 14th century as the Gesta Romanorum.

in Europe oral story-telling began in the 14th century (Geoffrey Chaucer's Canterbury Tales and Giovanni Boccaccio's Decameron).

mid 17th century France saw the development of a refined short novel, called “nouvelle“

Definition I

work of fiction written in prose often narrative format length can differ immensely (1000 - 20000 words) reason: author´s preference “One should be able to read it in one sitting“ (E. A. Poe) stories with less than 1000 words are called “flash fiction“

definition II

• short stories can be seen as a small suitcase – only the most important things should be put in

• the place it takes place it not so important for the plot• a short story has only one plot – a novel can have more (for example a love and a

crime story)• story time (time of plot) should be about a short period• setting shouldn´t change often• only a few persons should act• names are often unknown• character should act in a way that the narrator doesn´t need to describe their

emotions• 1st person narrators are more interesting because they don´t know everything

Definition III

• the illusion of being part of the situation on the reader´s behalf is stronger if the narrator and the reader don´t know what´s going on

• non-heroes are – in contrast to a novel - in the focus of the plot• short stories “like“ losing people who have failed • these protagonists are shown in a snapshot• everything that happened before and that will happen afterward has to be constructed

by the reader• flashbacks (retrospectives) are rare• short stories and photographs are similar• a good short story causes visualisations and konfigurations on the reader´s behalf• as a result the reader constructs his own frames and verifies them with his own

experiences

How to write a short story

How to write a short story

How to create a short story

Read a book about writing short stories (Creating Short Fiction by Damon Knight)

Create an open beginning, a middle, and the open ending You need a person (alien, rabbit, human being etc.) The person has a problem and tries to solve it - success is not necessary The protagonist may fail but learns something The protagonist doesn´t have to be satisfied, the reader must be satisfied The protagonist should be changed because that´s what readers like:

change Ideally what you have is at least two ideas going on at the same time. Intersection (Überschneidung) of 2 ideas and see how they will both affect

your story

1790 - 1850

Early examples of short stories between 1790-1810:

1789: beginnings of short fiction in American magazines: Azakia: A Canadian Story (1st publ.1767), The Story of the Captain's Wife and an Aged Woman (1st publ. 1789, author anonymous)

1805: Charles Brockden Brown's Somnambulism 1815: Washington Irving's Rip van Winkle in The

Sketch Book of Geoffrey Crayon, Gent. 1822: Irving´s Bracebridge Hall: or The

Humorists (publ. in England) 1824: Irving´s Tales of a Traveller (publ. in England)

1830 – 1865 (Romantic Period)

l830-2 -- Nathaniel Hawthorne's earliest tales Provincial Tales and Seven Tales of My Native Land

l832 -- Edgar Allan Poe's first tale Metzengerstein

l833 -- William Gilmore Simms' The Book of My Lady

l833-5 -- Hawthorne's The Story Teller

l836-8 -- Poe edits Southern Literary Messenger, reviews short fiction (inc. Longstreet).

l837 -- Hawthorne's Twice-Told Tales

l840 -- Poe's Tales of the Grotesque and Arabesque

l842 -- 2nd edition of Twice-Told Tales

l842-7 -- Early anthologies of American literature published, including The Prose Writers of America.

l843 -- Poe's The Prose Romances of Edgar Allan Poe

Herman Melville

l845 -- William T. Porter's The Big Bear of Arkansas, and Other Sketches

l846 -- Hawthorne's Mosses from an Old Manse

l847 -- Porter's A Quarter Race in Kentucky, and Other Sketches

l850 -- Herman Melville's review/essay, Hawthorne and his Mosses

l856 -- Melville's The Piazza Tales (inc. Bartleby the Scrivener, Benito Cereno and The Encantadas)

l857 -- Atlantic Monthly established.

Herman Melville (August 1, 1819 – September 28, 1891) was an American novelist, short story writer, essayist, and poet.

Moby Dick, Billy Bud

Successful in the late 1840s, almost forgotten in 1891

1819 - 1891

Bartleby The Scrivener (1853)

narrator is about 60 years old, he´s a lawyer 3 workers in his office: Turkey:

also about 60, good in the mornings, deteriorating in the afternoon (makes mistakes and gets an ill temper), doesn´t avoid arguments.

Nippers:

about 25 years old, different from Turkey, problems (stomach problems) when working in the morning, calmer and steadier working in the afternoons.

Ginger Nut:

12 years old errand-boy, Turkey and Nippers often send him to get ginger nut cakes for them.

Bartleby

He´s the new scrivener, described as “pallidly neat, pitiably respectable, incurably forlorn!“

At the beginning he´s a real asset but soon he declines everything (“I would prefer not to“).

The narrator firstly tries to help him and shows compassion but later he fires him – but in vain.

Bartleby is back in the office and the narrator is not able to cope with the situation. The latter moves to a new office.

Bartleby is left back in the empty office and is a nuisance for the others in that building.

Bartleby´s end

Bartleby dies at the end. The narrator gives the reader some hints:

Bartleby had been, following rumours, a clerk in the Dead Letter Office at Washington before he came to the lawyer.

“Dead letters! Does it not sound like dead men?“, the narrator asks.

The narrator obviously realizes that Bartleby got sick by copying all those texts/contracts about money and materialism.

So what is your interpretation?