MASTERS OF THE SHORT STORY

English 170K

Course Description

The short story is the youngest of the major literary genres, yet it can boast some of the most incontestably eloquent and moving works of literature. As the course title suggests, this class will concentrate on the works of a few distinguished writers of short fiction. In each case the writer is one with an acknowledged reputation, and the emphasis of the course will be upon exploring how writers shape and manipulate the genre to produce lasting and individual/distinctive works.

Syllabus

Schedule

M--6/3--Introduction

Tu--6/4--Lecture

W--6/5--NATHANIEL HAWTHORNE: "My Kinsman, Major Molineux"

Th--6/6--"Wakefield"; "The Birth-mark"

M--6/10--"The Artist of the Beautiful"; "Ethan Brand"

Tu--6/11--JAMES JOYCE: "Araby"

W--6/12--"The Sisters"

Th--6/13--"Eveline"

M--6/17--"Ivy Day in the Committee Room"

Tu--6/18--"The Dead"

W--6/19--SHERWOOD ANDERSON: "Hands"

Th--6/20--"The Teacher"

M--6/24--"The Untold Lie"

Tu--6/25--"Death"

W--6/26--ERNEST HEMINGWAY: "The Short, Happy Life of Francis Macomber"

Th--6/27--"The Snows of Kilimanjaro"

M--7/1--"Hills Like White Elephants"

Tu--7/2--"A Clean, Well-Lighted Place"; FRANK O'CONNOR; "Guests of the Nation"

W--7/3--"The Bridal Night" PAPER DUE

Th--7/4--HOLIDAY

M--7/8--"First Confession"; "The Majesty of the Law"

Tu--7/9---FLANNERY O'CONNOR: "A Good Man is Hard to Find"

W--7/10-"The Life You Save May be Your Own"; "Good Country People"

Th--7/11--FINAL EXAM (in class; bring blue book)

GRADING

The final course grade will be based on:

*To miss any of the assignments above will result in an automatic failure of the course. NO EXCEPTIONS.

STUDY QUESTIONS: MASTERS OF THE SHORT STORY

NATHANIEL HAWTHORNE (1804-64)

"My Kinsman, Major Molineux"

1.) What are we to make of the introductory ¶? What is the point of this; what connection does it have to the story?

2.) What is the theme(s) or point of the story?

3.) Who is Robin, what does he want, where does he come from; why is he in town?

4.) What is the point of all the laughter & why does Robin laugh at the end? What is he laughing at?

5.) There are many scenes that are surreal or phantasmagorical. What is the point; what is really happening?

"Wakefield"

1.) Look closely at the story's narrator. Who is this figure and how does he approach the telling of the tale?

2.) Explain the circumstances by which Wakefield leaves his home and stays away so long.

3.) What significance do you attache to wakefield's description? How is he described both at the beginning and end of the story and compare him with his wife.

4.) What does the narrator mean by calling Wakefield "the Outcast of the Universe"?

5.) The story is presented as a kind of oddity, and one which the author appears to end abruptly. What point is there to the story and what is Hawthorne suggesting with it?

"The Birth-mark"

1.) What is the significance of the mark on Georgiana's cheek?

2.) What does the story say about the secrets of nature and about human attempts to learn them?

3.) What is the relation between Aylmer's love for science and his love for Georgiana?

4.) What is the significance of Georgiana's touching and blighting the plant which Aylmer gives her? How does Aylmer interpret this event?

5.) Look closely at the ways in which Aylmer is described; who is this man and what is his significance?

"The Artist of the Beautiful"

1.)What is it that Owen Warland wants to accomplish; is he successful?

2.) What do the principal characters represent?

3.) The plot consists of various oppositions; what are these?

"Ethan Brand"

1.) What has Ethan Brand done; what did he set out to do?

2.) Who are the minor characters in this drama; what do they represent?

3.) As an allegory, what point is the story making?

4.) What is the importance of the lime-kiln, both as a physical device and as a setting?

JAMES JOYCE (1882-1941)

"Araby"

1.) Explain the title; what does it mean both literally and figuratively?

2.) The story abounds in religious imagery. Trace some of this and explain what it's significance is?

3.) What is the point of the series of seemingly unrelated bits of information--disappointment with the dead priest's belongings; standing apart from the girl when speaking to her and his companions at the same time; gossip over the tea table; his uncle's tardiness and inane remarks about the boy's departure; etc.?

4.) Explain the meaning and/or significance of the last line, "Gazing up into the darkness I saw myself as a creature driven and derided by vanity; and my eyes burned with anguish and anger."

"The Sisters"

1.) What is the importance of the boy's dream on pp. 11 & 13?

2.) What is simony and how does it figure in the story?

3.) What is Father Flynn's importance; does he represent anything?

4.) Are the sisters important in a symbolic way?

5.) Given Joyce's conception of artistic epiphany, what is the story's epiphany and for whom?

"Eveline"

1.) What are we to make of the fact that the street Eveline lives on is changing?

2.) Is it in any way important that the major developer is a "man from Belfast"; what is the importance of this detail?

3.) One critic has argued that Eveline has "no capacity for love"; do you agree?

4.) Why doesn't she board the ship despite her earlier resolve to do so?

5.) What point might Joyce be making either about Dublin or Ireland or both together?

"The Boarding House"

1.) The story's first line informs us that "Mrs. Mooney was a butcher's daughter." In what ways is this seeming innocuous detail important?

2.) What is one to make of the fact that Mrs. Mooney is referred to as "The Madam"?

3.) Who is Polly; what do we know about her; how are we to respond to her?

4.) Can one make a case for this as a distinctly Irish story; explain?

"Ivy Day in the Committee Room"

1.) What is going on here? Granted there is little action, but what is taking place?

2.) Who is Henchy and how is he important?

3.) Who is Crofton?

4.) Who is O'Connor?

5.) Who is Hynes?

6.) What is Joyce's point in offering these various individual portraits? Is there some point he is working toward, some theme he is dramatizing?

"The Dead"

1.) Joyce originally planned to conclude Dubliners w/ "Grace" in the ms. version of 1906. However, he wrote "The Dead" in 1907, and the collection was eventually published as we find it in 1914. Analyze how "The Dead" is like or fits w/ the stories that precede it.

2.) Analyze how the story is unlike or atypical of those which precede it.

3.) What role does Miss Ivors play in the story; why does Joyce include her?

4.) Given our discussions of epiphany, how is this important in this story? Who has an epiphany and what is the nature of it?

5.) What is meant by the sentence on p. 223, "The time had come for him to set out on his journey westward'?

6.) What is the importance of the snow imagery, esp. at the close of the story?

SHERWOOD ANDERSON (1876-1941)

"Hands"

1.) Look at the setting; how is it described and what does it reveal?

2.) Look closely at the sense of time in the story; describe it.

3.) Why does Wing confide in George Willard?

4.) Once critic has written, "Biddlebaum's situation enfolds within it the entire condition of man." Explain what you think this means; how is Biddlebaum representative of humanity?

5.) The title obviously suggests some symbolic importance. What do Wing's hands represent?

"Paper Pills"

1.) What is the point of the extended anecdote of the dark-haired woman's romances and unexpected marriage to Dr. Parcival?

2.) How are sex and love depicted in this story?

3.) Explain the importance of the images referred to in the story's title.

4.) Explain the importance of the twisted apples mentioned at the end.

"The Teacher"

1.) Consider the details of setting, especially the weather. How do these details fits with or enhance the story?

2.) What is the point of the attention given to Hop Higgins, the night watchman?

3.) What does Kate Swift mean when she tells George Willard, "If you are to become a writer you'll have to stop fooling with words"?

4.) Why does Kate Swift strike George at the very moment he begins to respond to her overtures?

5.) What happens to George as a result of these experiences?

"The Untold Lie"

1.) Explain the structure of the story; what does this structure suggest about Anderson's fictional methods?

2.) Look closely at the setting; how does this figure in the story?

3.) How is marriage depicted in the story; is there any clear view about the institution?

4.) What happens to Ray and Hal; why is this event significant?

"Death"

1.) Compare the portraits of Dr. Parcival in this story and "Paper Pills." Who is this man; has he changed at all; in what ways and what do these changes suggest?

2.) Read the prefatory tale, "The Book of the Grotesques." Does Dr. Parcival have anything in common with the writer depicted in "Grotesques"; compare these characters. Refer to "Paper Pills" in developing your ideas.

3.) Given the author's description of grotesques in the prefatory tale, consider Elizabeth Willard. Is she one of these grotesques; if so, in what ways?

4.) The story ends elliptically with mention of money saved over the years locked away forever in the wall? Why does she not tell George of the legacy she long intended for him?

5.) What is the effect of his mother's death on George; look at this story as well as the two which conclude the collection in forming your answer.

ERNEST HEMINGWAY (1899-1961)

"The Short, Happy Life of Francis Macomber"

1.) Who is Francis Macomber and how is he important?

2.) Who is Helen Macomber and how is she important?

3.) Who is Robert Wilson and how is he important?

4.) What is the meaning of the story's title?

"The Snows of Kilimanjaro"

1.) Who is Harry and what is important about him?

2.) Who is Helen and how is she significant?

3.) Look closely at the hyena; how is this animal significant in the story?

4.) What is the significance of the story's epigraph about the leopard?

5.) Explain the story's conclusion. What is going on here; is it confusing; why? Does it remind you of another story (not from this class)?

"In Another Country"

1.) Look closely at the Major; who is this man; what are his salient physical & personal characteristics?

2.) Explain the meaning and implications of the story's title.

3.) What is the point of the major's outburst at the narrator? What does he mean w/ the remark, "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"?

4.) If we assume that the unnamed narrator is Nick Adams, what has happened to him, especially since the events of "A Way You'll Never Be"?

5.) What is the importance of the setting of Milan and the group of young soldiers?

"Hills Like White Elephants"

1.) What are these people talking, or trying to talk, about; what's going on here?

2.) What is the importance of the scene where the young woman comments on the hills looking like white elephants and then the one later when she says they don't look that way after all?

3.) Has the quarrel been resolved when the story ends?

4.) Look closely at the story's method; what is significant about this?

"A Clean, Well-Lighted Place"

1.) Who is the old, deaf man and why is he important?

2.) Who is the young waiter and why is he important?

3.) Who is the older waiter and why is he important?

4.) What is the point of the last section of the novel after the older waiter leaves the cafe and eventually returns to his room? (Look especially at the version of the Our Father and the Hail Mary.)

5.) Look at the story's style; what is significant about it?

"A Way You'll Never Be" (1933)

1.) Who is the protagonist; what has happened to him; what is he doing in the story?

2.) Who is Captain Paravicini; what is his importance in the story?

3.) Describe the fictional methods Hemingway is manipulating in the story and to what effects?

4.) Explain the story's title and its implications.

FRANK O'CONNOR (1903-66)

"Guests of the Nation"

1.) Examine the story's structure; how are events organized and related, and what effect does this structure have on the audience and our reading of the tale?

2.) Discuss Jeremiah Donovan's character and his role in the tale.

3.) Look closely at the old woman in whose house the soldiers stay. What is her function in the story; is it important?

4.) How does the method of narration contribute to the effect of the story?

"The Bridal Night"

1.) Look closely at Denis; who is this person and what is significant about his character?

2.) Look closely at Winnie Regan; who is she and what is significant about her?

3.) Analyze the method of narration; who is telling the story and what is the effect on the reader?

4.) O'Connor has stated that the modern short story deals with a "submerged population group." What is the applicability of this remark for this story?

"Song Without Words"

1.) Analyze Brother Arnold's character. Who is this man; what are his significant characteristics?

2.) Analyze Brother Michael. What is significant about this man?

3.) Explain the importance of Brother Michael's prayer on p. 39 and how does it fit w/ the conclusion?

4.) What do you think the story's major theme(s) is/are; what is O'Connor saying with the experience of these two men?

"First Confession"

1.) Look closely at the narrative point of view. What is it and how does it affect our reading of the story?

2.) What is the view of women that emerges in this story, and what is the point of presenting that view?

3.) What points of character or personality does the priest exhibit; how is he important?

4.) What themes or ideas is the story exploring?

"The Majesty of the Law"

1.) Who is Dan Bride; look at some of the small details about his house and his demeanor to arrive at a portrait?

2.) What is the point of the discussion about liquor (323) and doctors (324)?

3.) Look closely at the sergeant; who is this man and how is he important? Consider his relationship with Dan?

4.) Look closely at the pattern of color imagery; identify the pattern and describe its importance.

5.) Explain the point of Dan's quarrel with his neighbor; why won't he relent?

PDF copy of syllabus available here.

PDF copy of MLA Quick Reference Guide here.

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