Professional Documents
Culture Documents
American Short Stories
American Short Stories
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TO T H E R E A D E R 8
ON STYLE 10
L I T E R A R Y E L E M E N T S O F T H E S H O R T S TO R Y 13
UNIT ONE
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UNIT TWO
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UNIT THREE
W HERE H AVE YOU G ONE , C HARMING B ILLY ? (1975) T IM O’B RIEN 337
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UNIT FOUR
540
G L O S SA R Y O F L I T E R A R Y T E R M S 542
I N D E X O F T I T L E S A N D AU T H O R S 546
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TO THE READER
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ON STYLE
s you study this collection of American short stories, you will be intro-
duced to some of the 20th century’s most important writers. Almost cer-
tainly you won’t “like” every one, but each author has a unique message to
send and a distinctive way of sending it. The way a writer conveys a message
is called his or her style. Whether in clothing, music, visual art, or literature,
style is easy to see but hard to define. You might think of style in writing as
the way thoughts are dressed. While reading this collection of the greatest
short stories from the 20th century, you will be able to explore the authors’
styles. Analyzing style will make you a more perceptive reader and help you
develop your own writer’s voice. A good definition of style for this book is
that it is the author’s distinctive manner of expression.
As in most arts, it takes time and familiarity to recognize distinctions
among literary styles. Perhaps an analogy will help here. To the untrained
eye, a forest is just a collection of indistinct trees. To the trained eye, howev-
er, the forest is composed of a grove of white oaks on the hillside, a stand of
willows by the stream, and thorn-bearing hawthorn trees along its edges. As
you read, follow the Literary Lens prompts and pay close attention to the
information about the author’s life and style that precedes each selection.
Before long, clear distinctions will emerge.
In fact, some writers have such distinctive styles that they have spawned
imitators. The works of authors who follow paths blazed by Ernest
Hemingway and William Faulkner are sometimes called “Hemingwayesque”
or “Faulknerian.” Hemingway probably would have been startled by such
praise. He once wrote, “In stating as fully as I could how things were, it was
often very difficult and I wrote awkwardly and the awkwardness is what they
called my style.”
Hemingway is not alone in implying that he never deliberately set out
to create a style, but only wrote as well as he could instinctively. Katherine
Anne Porter once complained, “I’ve been called a stylist until I really could
tear my hair out. And I simply don’t believe in style. Style is you.”
Style is hard to describe because part of it is a certain indefinable
uniqueness. Some aspects of style are easier to pin down, however. That’s
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because style includes the set of choices and techniques that enable a writer
to tell a story. Choices regarding characterization, setting, and tone—to
name a few—impact the style of a story. But there are other sources of style,
such as the author’s background, whether that author is a man or a woman,
and the author’s race or ethnicity.
For example, F. Scott Fitzgerald grew up in modest circumstances in St.
Paul, Minnesota. He later left the Midwest and became fascinated with the
flamboyant rich of the East Coast. Fitzgerald’s descriptions often mix criti-
cism, sympathy, and awe for the rich lifestyle, as in this one-line character
sketch in his novel The Great Gatsby: “Her voice is full of money.” The sto-
ries of Alice Walker, on the other hand, come out of her experience as a
woman of color growing up in the United States. Her fiction often depicts a
female character finding her way in an environment of oppression.
Personal values also determine writers’ attitudes toward their characters.
John Steinbeck’s sympathies for those who fled the Oklahoma Dust Bowl of
the 1930s went into his writing about the struggle of common people for
economic justice. Flannery O’Connor’s fiction reflects her devout
Catholicism; her grotesque characters and often violent story lines express
her belief in the need for salvation. The combination of background, gen-
der, ethnicity, and values makes up the author’s world view.
Style also develops from writers’ responses to earlier writers they have
read. Some choose to work within a stylistic tradition, such as social real-
ism, in which the everyday lives of characters are depicted against a social,
political, and economic background that is presented as a matter of fact.
John Steinbeck, Katherine Anne Porter, John Updike, and Russell Banks are
among the American writers in this tradition. Other writers rebel against tra-
dition or find it necessary to innovate. They develop new styles to convey a
particular point of view. For example, William Faulkner uses internal
monologue to narrate stories through characters whose limitations would
make it impossible for them to tell their stories in the usual way. Ray
Bradbury and Kurt Vonnegut use futuristic settings in order to question and
probe current attitudes and trends.
Another aspect of style is tone, or the author’s attitude toward his or her
subject. Words such as “sympathetic,” “comic,” “passionate,” or “harsh” can
be used to describe the attitude of the writer. The tone helps determine the
story’s intellectual and emotional impact on the reader. One of the domi-
nant tones of fiction in the 20th century is irony. Irony reflects the sadness
or humor resulting from the gap between life as it is idealized, and life as it
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The years between 1920 and 1950 were ones of tumult and
growth for the United States. This was reflected in the literature
of the period as the country recovered from the trauma of
World War I and then reveled in the energetic social and cul-
tural ferment of the “Roaring Twenties.” The exuberance of the
twenties was stilled in the thirties as the country grappled with
economic disaster, which began with the stock market crash of
1929. The crash, which was followed by a long-term depres-
sion and a terrible drought in the country’s heartland, led to
quiet despair for many Americans. Ironically, it took World
War II to restore the economy as the country’s factories began
to produce the material needed to allow the U.S. to take a lead-
ing role in stopping fascism and imperialism in Europe.
The thirties and forties were major decades in the era
referred to as modern. In this period, much of the writing
reflected a national mood of sober reality rather than the ear-
lier optimism of the beginning of the century. A sense of sepa-
ration, deprivation, and loss was prevalent. This is reflected in
many of the stories and novels of the era, such as Ernest
Hemingway’s war stories and F. Scott Fitzgerald’s tales of The
Jazz Age and the “crack-up” that followed it. Meanwhile, John
Steinbeck contributed gritty stories of working-class struggle.
In many of the short stories from the period, dreaming, heal-
top to bottom: 1930: Couple Descending a
Staircase by J.C. Leyendecker illustrates the ing, and survival are prominent themes. Also notable is a tone
indulgent pursuit of pleasure and wealth of wistfulness for something better—more money and security,
during the 1920s. ★ 1933: The White Angel
Breadline by Dorothea Lange.This and more excitement or love, peace in the family and the world.
other Lange photos put a face on American literature of this era also reflected the begin-
the devastation of the Great Depression.
★ 1945: The Liberation of Buchenwald nings of numerous migrations. African Americans were drawn
by Margaret Bourke-White showed the
from the South by promises of more freedom and economic
world the horror of the WWII Nazi
concentration camps. opportunity up North. The artistic flowering of the Harlem
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Ernest Hemingway
1899–1961
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IN
ANOTHER
COUNTRY
E R N E S T H E M I N G WAY
n the fall the war was always there, but we did not go to it any
1
more. It was cold in the fall in Milan and the dark came very
early. Then the electric lights came on, and it was pleasant
along the streets looking in the windows. There was much
game hanging outside the shops, and the snow powdered in
the fur of the foxes and the wind blew their tails. The deer
hung stiff and heavy and empty, and small birds blew in the
wind and the wind turned their feathers. It was a cold fall and the
wind came down from the mountains.
We were all at the hospital every afternoon, and there were
different ways of walking across the town through the dusk to the
hospital. Two of the ways were alongside canals, but they were long.
Always, though, you crossed a bridge across a canal to enter the
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hospital. There was a choice of three bridges. On one of them a woman sold
roasted chestnuts. It was warm, standing in front of her charcoal fire, and the
chestnuts were warm afterward in your pocket. The hospital was very old and
very beautiful, and you entered through a gate and walked across a courtyard
and out a gate on the other side. There were usually funerals starting from the
pavilions: courtyard. Beyond the old hospital were the new brick pavilions, and there
annexes or
we met every afternoon and were all very polite and interested in what was
outbuildings
the matter, and sat in the machines that were to make so much difference.
The doctor came up to the machine where I was sitting and said: “What
did you like best to do before the war? Did you practice a sport?”
I said: “Yes, football.”
“Good,” he said. “You will be able to play football again better than
ever.”
My knee did not bend and the leg dropped straight from the knee to the
ankle without a calf, and the machine was to bend the knee and make it
move as in riding a tricycle. But it did not bend yet, and instead the machine
lurched when it came to the bending part. The doctor said: “That will all
pass. You are a fortunate young man. You will play football again like a
champion.”
In the next machine was a major who had a little hand like a baby’s. He
winked at me when the doctor examined his hand, which was between two
leather straps that bounced up and down and flapped the stiff fingers, and
said: “And will I too play football, captain-doctor?” He had been a very great
fencer, and before the war the greatest fencer in Italy.
The doctor went to his office in a back room and brought a photograph
which showed a hand that had been withered almost as small as the major’s,
before it had taken a machine course, and after was a little larger. The major
held the photograph with his good hand and looked at it very carefully. “A
wound?” he asked.
“An industrial accident,” the doctor said.
“Very interesting, very interesting,” the major said, and handed it back to
the doctor.
“You have confidence?”
“No,” said the major.
There were three boys who came each day who were about the same age
I was. They were all three from Milan, and one of them was to be a lawyer,
and one was to be a painter, and one had intended to be a soldier, and after
22 Ernest Hemingway
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4 Arditi: heavily armed and highly trained soldiers who were given the most dangerous combat assignments
In Another Country 23
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5 fratellanza: brotherhood
6 abnegazione: sacrifice
7 hunting-hawks: Literally, hunting hawks are birds trained to hunt and kill prey; with reference to war, “hawks” are
people who are pro-military.
24 Ernest Hemingway
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the boy who had been wounded his first day at the front, because he would
never know now how he would have turned out; so he could never be accepted
either, and I liked him because I thought perhaps he would not have turned
out to be a hawk either.
The major, who had been the great fencer, did not believe in bravery, and
spent much time while we sat in the machines correcting my grammar. He
had complimented me on how I spoke Italian, and we talked together very
easily. One day I had said that Italian seemed such an easy language to me
that I could not take a great interest in it; everything was so easy to say. “Ah,
yes,” the major said. “Why, then, do you not take up the use of grammar?”
So we took up the use of grammar, and soon Italian was such a difficult lan-
guage that I was afraid to talk to him until I had the grammar straight in my
mind.
The major came very regularly to the hospital. I do not think he ever
missed a day, although I am sure he did not believe in the machines. There
was a time when none of us believed in the machines, and one day the major
said it was all nonsense. The machines were new then and it was we who
were to prove them. It was an idiotic idea, he said, “a theory, like another.” I
had not learned my grammar, and he said I was a stupid impossible disgrace,
and he was a fool to have bothered with me. He was a small man and he sat
straight up in his chair with his right hand thrust into the machine and
looked straight ahead at the wall while the straps thumped up and down
with his fingers in them.
“What will you do when the war is over if it is over?” he asked me. “Speak
grammatically!”
“I will go to the States.”
“Are you married?”
“No, but I hope to be.”
“The more of a fool you are,” he said. He seemed very angry. “A man
must not marry.”
“Why, Signor Maggiore?”
“Don’t call me ‘Signor Maggiore.’”
“Why must not a man marry?”
“He cannot marry. He cannot marry,” he said angrily. “If he is to lose
everything, he should not place himself in a position to lose that. He should
not place himself in a position to lose. He should find things he cannot
lose.”
In Another Country 25
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He spoke very angrily and bitterly, and looked straight ahead while he
talked.
“But why should he necessarily lose it?”
“He’ll lose it,” the major said. He was looking at the wall. Then he looked
down at the machine and jerked his little hand out from between the straps
and slapped it hard against his thigh. “He’ll lose it,” he almost shouted.
“Don’t argue with me!” Then he called to the attendant who ran the
machines. “Come and turn this damned thing off.”
He went back into the other room for the light treatment and the mas-
sage. Then I heard him ask the doctor if he might use his telephone and he
shut the door. When he came back into the room, I was sitting in another
machine. He was wearing his cape and had his cap on, and he came directly
toward my machine and put his arm on my shoulder.
“I am sorry,” he said, and patted me on the shoulder with his good hand.
“I would not be rude. My wife has just died. You must forgive me.”
“Oh—” I said, feeling sick for him. “I am so sorry.”
He stood there biting his lower lip. “It is very difficult,” he said. “I can-
not resign myself.”
He looked straight past me and out through the window. Then he began
to cry. “I am utterly unable to resign myself,” he said and choked. And then
crying, his head up looking at nothing, carrying himself straight and soldierly,
with tears on both cheeks and biting his lips, he walked past the machines
and out the door.
The doctor told me that the major’s wife, who was very young and whom
8
he had not married until he was definitely invalided out of the war, had died
of pneumonia. She had been sick only a few days. No one expected her to die.
The major did not come to the hospital for three days. Then he came at the
usual hour, wearing a black band on the sleeve of his uniform. When he came
back, there were large framed photographs around the wall, of all sorts of
wounds before and after they had been cured by the machines. In front of the
machine the major used were three photographs of hands like his that were
completely restored. I do not know where the doctor got them. I always under-
stood we were the first to use the machines. The photographs did not make
much difference to the major because he only looked out of the window.
8 invalided out of the war: meaning that the major was injured and could no longer fight in the war
26 Ernest Hemingway
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2.
3. Hemingway once is known
defined
as ancourage
“existentialist”
as “gracewriter.
underExistentialism
pressure.” In is
what
the
way,
beliefif that
at all,humans
is this idea
existdemonstrated
in a universe that
in “InisAnother
impossible
Country”?
to understand.
Nonetheless, we must still assume responsibility for our actions with-
3. Hemingway
out knowingisfor known as what
an “existentialist” writer.InExistentialism is the
certain is right or wrong. what ways does “In
belief thatCountry”
humans exist in the
an empty
idea ofuniverse that does not care
Another reflect existentialism?
about human existence. In the face of this nothingness and loneliness,
4. What
humans domust
you think
createthetheir
view own
of the
meaning
narrator
and ispurpose.
toward Inwar
what
andways
the mil-
does
itary establishment?
“In Another Country” Supportreflect
your answer
the idea
withof existentialism?
evidence from the text.
4. THE AdoUTHOR
5. What ’S Sthe
you think TYLEview
Read
of the narrator
passage below.
is toward
Locate
warpassages
and the in
the
military
storyestablishment?
that reflect Hemingway’s
Support yourinterest
answerinwith
the “true
evidence
simple
fromdeclara-
tive sentence.” Then attempt to emulate Hemingway’s method and
the text.
style. For example, you might look for the first declarative sentence in
5. aTHE
piece of your’own
AUTHOR writing.Then
S STYLE cut the
After reading the“scrollwork or ornament”
quotation below, locate
and “go from there.”
two sentences in the story that seem to fit his description of the
“true simple declarative sentence.”
Sometimes when I was starting a new story and I could not get it
going . . . I would stand and look out over the roofs of Paris and think,
“Do not worry.You have always written before and you will write
now. All you have to do is write one true sentence. Write the truest
sentence that you know.” So finally I would write one true sentence, and
then go on from there . . . If I started to write elaborately, or like some-
one introducing or presenting something, I found that I could cut that
scrollwork or ornament out and throw it away and start with the
first true simple declarative sentence I had written.
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Experiencing
1. For their grotesque and macabre incidents, both “The Lottery” and “Miriam” might
appear in a collection of horror stories.Which do you find more satisfyingly
creepy and why?
2. Reread the last paragraph of each story in this unit.Which do you think is the most
memorable and why?
Interpreting
3. In three of the stories in this unit—“He,” “The Far and the Near,” and “The
Chrysanthemums”—at least one important character is never given a name.Why do
you think the authors made this choice in each instance?
4. The theme of the mysterious stranger is common in literature. In the traditional form
of this theme, a mysterious stranger appears in the life of an individual or community. In
a series of dramatic events, the stranger makes a sacrifice through which the life of the
individual or community is improved. Choose one of the short stories in this chapter
that features a stranger: “The Chrysanthemums,” “Miriam,” or “The Black Ball.” Explain
how the story fits, or deviates from, the theme of the mysterious stranger.
5. The ball is important in “The Black Ball” and the black box plays a central role in “The
Lottery.” What do these two objects have in common?
Evaluating
6. The first six stories in this unit have a theme of loss in common. In your opinion, which
story evokes the most pathos?
7. Hemingway and Fitzgerald were both friends and competitors, moving in the same
social circles and writing during the same era.What differences and similarities do you
see between “In Another Country” and “Babylon Revisited”?
8. The opening sentence of Anna Karenina by the Russian author Leo Tolstoy reads: “All
happy families resemble one another; every unhappy family is unhappy in its own way.”
In what unique ways are the families in “He” and “Why I Live at the P.O.” unhappy?
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Staying Power
The stories in this unit were all written more than 50 years ago.Write a persuasive
essay about which story you think has best stood the test of time.You may want to use
passages from the story as evidence. Consider what is timeless about the style, theme,
or characters of the story you choose.
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G L O S S A RY O F L I T E R A RY T E R M S
absurdism writing that reflects the idea that the universe is irrational and meaningless
allegory a literary work in which characters, objects, and events stand for abstract
qualities outside the story such as goodness, pleasure, or evil
allusion a reference to an historical or literary figure or event
analogy a description of an unfamiliar thing through comparing it to something more
well-known
anecdote a short incident or story that illustrates a point; anecdotal stories usually have
an informal storyteller’s tone
anti-hero a protagonist who displays traits opposite to the qualities usually associated
with the traditional hero
archetype an image, character, symbol, plot, or other literary device that appears
frequently enough in myths, folktales, and other literary works so as to
become an important part of a culture
characterization the manner in which an author creates and develops a character utilizing
exposition, dialogue, and action
climax the high point of a plot; sometimes coincides with the turning point
or defining moment; some stories do not have a clear climax
colloquialism a local or regional expression
concrete a universal concern (one that applies to everyone, everywhere) addressed
universal through a concrete, or local, setting
conflict the struggle between opposing forces; external conflict involves an outer force
such as nature or another character while internal conflict exists inside a
person, say between a hero’s sense of duty and desire for freedom
denouement literally “the untying;” the part of a plot in which the conflict is “untied” or
resolved; usually follows the climax
dialogue conversation between characters in a literary work
epiphany an event, sometimes mystical in nature, in which a character changes in
profound ways due to the revelation of a simple yet powerful truth; also
sometimes called a defining moment, moment of clarity, or moment of truth
exposition information or background that is directly conveyed or explained, usually by
the narrator
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fable a short story or tale that demonstrates a moral or truth; frequently contains
fantasy elements such as talking animal characters
falling action the events of a plot that follow the climax; also referred to as
the denouement or resolution
fantasy stories that contain characters, settings, and objects that could not exist, such
as dragons or magic swords; often heroic in nature and sometimes based on
myths and legends
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irony a recognition and heightening of the difference between appearance and reality;
situational irony occurs when events turn out differently than expected; dramatic
irony occurs when the audience has important knowledge that a main
character lacks
juxtaposition two or more things placed side by side, generally in an unexpected combination
local color a style of writing that developed just after the Civil War and that strives to
movement reveal the peculiarities of a particular place and the people who live there
metafiction fiction that contains within it a comment about the process of writing fiction
metaphor a figure of speech that implies a similarity between two unlike things
minimalist a spare, pared down style of writing made popular in the 1970s
morality play a play in which the characters personify moral or abstract qualities such as
Charity or Death
motivation the reasons or forces that cause characters to act as they do
mysticism the belief that knowledge of God, truth, or reality can be gained through
intuition or insight
myth a traditional story, often one that explains a belief or natural phenomenon
narrator a teller of a story; an unreliable narrator makes incorrect conclusions and
biased assumptions; a naïve narrator doesn’t fully understand the events
he or she narrates
neologism a newly coined word
oral tradition legends, folktales, and stories that were initially told orally
pathos an element of literature that evokes pity or compassion
plot the events of a story
point of view the perspective from which a story is narrated: in first person point of view the
narrator is a character in the story and uses the personal pronoun “I”; in third
person limited point of view, the narrator is outside the story but presents the
story through the thoughts and feelings of one character; in third person
omniscient point of view, the narrator is outside the story and knows the thoughts
and feelings of all characters and can comment on any part of the story
protagonist the main character of a story
realistic fiction fiction that attempts to describe the world in a realistic fashion
regionalism literature with an emphasis on locale or other local characteristics such as
dialect
repartee quick, witty exchanges of dialogue
resolution the point at which the chief conflict or complication is worked out
rising action the events leading up to the climax of a plot
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satire writing that uses humor or ridicule to point out human shortcomings and follies
scenario a plot outline; one of many ways in which a story could be worked out
setting the time and place of the action of a story
simile a comparason of one thing to another that uses “like” or “as”
stream of the flow of various impressions—visual, auditory, psychological, intuitive—that
consciousness represent the mind and heart of a character
subtext a hidden meaning, often symbolic or metaphorical, that must be inferred from
the text given
surrealism a literary and artistic movement emphasizing the expression of the
subconscious through dreamlike imagery
symbol an object that stands for or represents a more abstract concept, such as an
eagle for freedom or a rose for love
tale a series of facts or events either told or written
theme the underlying meaning or message of a literary work
third person see point of view
limited point
of view
third person see point of view
omniscient
point of view
tone the author or narrator’s attitude toward the subject of a work; an author might
have an ironic, humorous, sarcastic, serious, or deadpan tone, to name a few
universality the quality of having feelings, thoughts, emotions, themes, or problems that cross
all times and cultures
voice an author or character’s distinctive way of expressing himself or herself
world view the background, attitudes, and values of a society or individual
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