READING THE MODERN SHORT STORY: ITS ELEMENTS (PLOT, CONFLICT, TURNING

POINT, CLIMAX, SETTING, CHARACTER, THEMES)

The modern Short Story

- Recent literature has a vast array of stories written in languages that children can understand.
- Children’s literature
o By no means an inferior category of literature.
o Legitimate branch of literature
o Marked by consciously planned composition with a subject and theme through which
unity and style may be evident.
- Stories will be considered in three categories:
o Traditional folktales
o Realistic stories
o Biographical stories
- Realistic stories
o Realism
 Not a definite form in fiction
 It is an objective, an endeavor to represent life honestly
o Seeks to represent life as it is
o Forerunners of realism:
 Heidi
 Little Women
o Should satisfy some of a child’s basic needs, such as:
 Need for security
 Love of adventure
 Need for love and loving
o Will give a listener or reader increased insight into his own personal problems and social
relationships.
o May help both parents and teachers develop tolerance in their children.

Origins of the Modern Short Story

- Short narratives and tales

o Existed for centuries in one form or another.
- “The Two Drovers”
o By Walter Scott.
o Published in Chronicles of the Cannongate in 1827.
o Said to have been the first literary text that is claimed to be a modern short story.
o Convenient starting point
o Inspiring tons of artists
- The modern short story
o Emerged in the mid 19th century in 1880 with Robert Louis Stevenson.
- Therefore, in many ways the true beginnings of the modern short story are to be found in
America.
- “Twice Told-Tales”
o By Nathaniel Hawthorne
 o Published in 1837
o Starting point
- Edgar Allan Poe
o Made the first real analysis of the difference between the short story and the novel when
reading Hawthorne
o Short story
 Guide simply as a narrative that “can be read at one setting”
o Tried to point out the short story’s curious singularity of effect.

Elements of Fiction

- Short story
o Focuses on one incident
o Has a single plot
o A single setting
o Small number of characters
o Covers a short period of time
- Setting
o Where and when a story takes place
o Conveys the prevailing atmosphere or mood of the piece
- Character
o Revealed through their own thoughts, words and actions assume a vitality and fullness of
dimension that no statement about them can convey.
o But not everything we need to know about a character can be acted out
 So, writers draw exposition to quicken the narrative
 Exposition
o Provides information
o Summarizes action
o Combines summary with judgement
o Descriptions of characters may include:
 Facts
 Comments
 Details of their appearance
o The individuals who come alive in a work of fiction reflect the complexity and quirkiness
of human nature.
- Plot and Structure
o Plot
 What happens to the character or characters in a story
 Consists of
 Exposition – the introduction of setting, situation and main characters
 Complication – the event that introduces the conflict
 Rising action, crisis – the decisive moment for the protagonist and his
commitment to a course of action
 Climax – the part of highest interest in terms of the conflict and the point
with the most action
 Resolution or denouement – the point when the conflict is resolved
  Moral
o Plot in a novel
 Can unfold in a leisurely manner and include extensive information about its
characters
o Plot in short story
 Demands compression and its action and characters must be drawn quickly
o Short story writers frequently focus on a significant moment, a single conflict in a
character’s life, rather than on a series of dilemmas.
o Conflict
 Clash between characters, ideas, ways of life, or choices
 Essential to the plot
 It is the spring board for movement, development, and change
o Structure and form
 Points to its central concern and so provides a valuable key to its meaning
 Short stories may or may not follow the pattern due to their length, thus modern
short stories only occasionally use exposition
o Exposition
 Provides the background information needed to properly understand the story
 Ends with the inciting moment
 Sets the remainder of the story in motion beginning with the second act,
the rising action
o Rising Action
 The basic internal conflict is complicated by the introduction of related
secondary conflicts
 Secondary conflicts can include:
 Adversaries of lesser importance than the story’s antagonist
 Follows the exposition and leads up to the climax
 Purpose is to build suspense all the way up the climactic finish
o Climax
 Third act
 Turning point
 Marks a change for the better or the worse, in the protagonist’s affairs
 Point of greatest emotional intensity, interest, or suspense
o Falling Action
 The moment of reversal after the climax
 Conflict between the protagonist and antagonist unravels
 Might contain a moment of final suspense, during which the final outcome of the
conflict is in doubt
o Denouement, Resolution, or Catastrophe
 Comedy
 Ends with a denouement (conclusion)
 Tragedy
 Ends with a catastrophe
Point of View

- Stories are written by authors, but told by narrators

- Narrator
o A persona
o Character with a distinct voice created by that writer to tell the story
o Prism through which the narrative is filtered
 It is important that the teller suit the tale
- Point of View
o Depends on who is telling the story and where that teller is situated
o Colors our perception of a story’s character and incidents
- Thus, who tells the story and the distance between the narrator and the other characters are both
intrinsic to what that story is about.
- Casting of a narrator
o One of the most important decisions an author must make
- Third-person narrator
o Most common device
o One who is not a participant in the events
o May be omniscient, partly omniscient, or objective
- Omniscient narrators
o Godlike in knowledge and power
o Able to reveal any or all of the characters’ inner thoughts and feelings
- Omniscient author
o Most familiar point of view in fiction
o Takes us place to place with ease and even moves freely into and out of the minds if his
characters
- Third person limited
o The narrator again tells the story conventionally, using third person pronouns but limits
himself and his reader to whatever knowledge or feelings one character would have
- Limited Omniscient
o Who cannot read all minds, but focuses on one character
o Knows and understands the character better that the character ever understand himself or
herself
o Able to present the character’s point of view with great conviction
- Objective narrator
o Does not presume to know any more about the characters than what can be gathered from
observation
o In most extreme form
 May sound like a newspaper report
- First-person narrator
o Story told by one of the characters, either a central character or a peripheral observer
o The I narrating the story
 May be the protagonist or may function not as the main actor but as a witness to
events
o Conveys a strong sense of immediacy and authenticity, but limits the knowledge of the
reader
- Writers sometime experiment with multiple narrators
- Point of view may also create irony in a work of literature
 - Irony
o The incongruity or contrast between word and meaning, appearance and reality,
expectation and outcome, action and result.
- Verbal irony
o Occurs when there is a discrepancy between the literal meaning and the actual intent of a
statement
o Commonly results from overstatement, understatement, or sarcasm

Style, Tone, and Mood

- Style
o The special language of a particular work of literature
o The distinctive way in which a writer expresses themselves
o Depends on:
 Diction
 Syntax
 Rhythm
 Imagery
 Experiments with literary form
o Diction
 The word choice
 The vocabulary that characterizes the speaker
o Syntax
 Grammar and sentence structure
 Closely related to diction
 Short, simple words are often connected to short, simple sentence patterns, pared-
down prose
 At the other end of the other end of the spectrum are the rich, metaphorical
language and frequently complex sentences
o Imagery
 The original, evocative, and non-literal use of language
 Part of an author’s repertoire
 Images
 Convey feelings, ideas, or sensory impressions with concrete pictures
- Tone
o Is established by the style of an individual work
o Reflecting thee narrator’s attitude toward characters and events
o Can range from sympathetic to sardonic, amused to enraged, concerned to indifferent