Introduction to Literature

1
Introduction to Literature

• Lesson Three Reading Short Stories
• Love

Margarette R. Connor
2
Outline

• Short story critical terms
• plot
• character
• setting
• point of view
• symbolism
• theme
• style, diction, irony
• Biography of O. Henry

3
Short stories arent 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.

4
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

5
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 were now going to add some new words to your
  critical arsenal.

6
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.

7
Character

• These are the people or sometimes even the
  animals (like Jack Londons 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
• speech patterns,
• dress,
• possessions
• actions.

8
Two important character terms

• Protagonist, or sometimes, the hero, though in
  many stories, the protagonist isnt too heroic!
• Antagonist, or the bad guy. The one who is the
  adversary of the protagonist.

9
Setting

• When and where a story takes place.
• Sometimes the setting can almost become a
  character itself, as in Faulkners South or
  Hawthornes Puritan-era 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 characters actions.

10
Atmosphere

• An author can also use setting to establish
  atmosphere, the mood a work will take.
• In Poes Fall of the House of Usher, the
  decaying house and its surroundings echo the
  decay of Roderick Ushers mind.

11
Point of view

• This tells us whos 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.

12
Two different types

• Third person,
• has three types
• First person,
• has two types.

13
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.

14
Omniscient narrator

• All-knowing.
• The narrator can tell us anything thats
  happening at any time in the story.
• If the narrator can go into all the characters
  thoughts and tell us whats going on with their
  emotions and thought-process, we call that
  editorial omniscience.
• In contrast, the narrator may only show us whats
  going on in terms of the actions and words of a
  character, leaving us to draw our own conclusions
  about motive. Thats called neutral omniscience.

15
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.

16
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
  Joyces Ulysses, which is indeed incredibly
  challenging to read.

17
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.

18
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

19
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.

20
Naïve narrator

• Told from the point of view of an innocent or a
  child.
• An example is Mark Twains famous Huck Finn.
• He tells us the story, but it is from a childs
  point of view and as readers, we must always
  remember this fact.

21
Symbolism

• We discussed symbols when we went over the first
  lesson, and symbolism is finding the meaning of
  symbols.
• Two different kinds
• conventional
• literary

22
Conventional symbols

• Widely recognized by a culture or society.
• Examples are
• a nations flag,
• the Christian cross,
• the Jewish Star of David,
• the Buddhist cross
• the Nazi swastika

23
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.

24
Theme

• The central idea or meaning of a story.
• Its the point an author is trying to make.
• As simple as this sounds, it isnt always simple
  finding the theme.

25
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 wont be one word like
  love. It will be a statement about love.

26
Style

• How a writer writes.
• After weve 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.

27
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 wont 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

28
Irony

• A device that reveals a reality different from
  what appears to be true.
• There are three different kinds of irony that
  well discuss.

29
Verbal irony

• If my friend is very dirty from playing football,
  and I say, You are looking so fresh today,
  thats verbal irony.
• Very common in todays speech.
• If I mean to hurt someone with my verbal irony,
  it becomes sarcasm.

30
Situational irony

• Happens in literature when the reality isnt what
  we think it is.
• For example, in Charlotte Perkins Gilmans The
  Yellow Wallpaper it looks as if the narrator has
  a caring husband, but through trying to cure her,
  he makes her worse.

31
Dramatic irony

• Occurs when protagonist says something or
  believes something that the reader understands is
  not true.
• Flannery OConnor 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.

32
O. Henry (William Sydney Porter) 1862-1910

• American short story
  writer

33
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.

34
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.

35
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.
• )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, but after a year, he returned because
  of his wife's deteriorating health. She died soon
  afterward, and in early 1898 Porter was found
  guilty of the banking charges (though there is
  still some question of his guilt) and sentenced
  to five years in an Ohio prison.

36
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.

37
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.

38
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 like
  then.

39
Turn of the century New York

• Della and Jims apartment might have been in a
  building like these.

40
Interpretation The Gift of the Magi

• Actually published in 1905
• Story about Christmas
• It is set in New York City

41

• 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 thats the dilemma.

42

• She tried her hardest to save money penny by
  penny. She cried, shes 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

43

• 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.

44

• 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.

45

• 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.

46

• 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.

47

• 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.