The Modern American Short Story A Brief Introduction Blue American Literature Textbook p. 740-1

The Short Story One of the most popular genres among American authors Authors in the U.S. began to portray plots and characters that mirrored real life. Modernist writers began experimenting with new ways of capturing the complexity of human life.

Literary Mavericks Sherwood Anderson, Ernest Hemingway, F. Scott Fitzgerald, Henry James, and Katherine Anne Porter energized the short story in the early 1900s “to at last go out of myself, truly into others I met constantly in the streets of the city, in the office where I then worked, and still others remembered out of my childhood in an American small town.” -Anderson

Stream of Consciousness Many authors of the early 1900s were influenced by the new psychological theories of the time Sigmund Freud: sought unconscious causes for people’s behaviour. Stream of consciousness: coined by William James in 1890, believed thought was a constant stream flowing through the minds without clear logic or order.

Stream of Consciousness continued James Joyce, Virginia Woolf, William Falkner, and Katherine Anne Porter Defining elements: -first-person POV -a lack of conventional sentence structure or grammar -”free associations” that flow through a character’s mind and link distinctly separate events -interior monologues

The Interior World Modernists reacted against formulaic, plot-driven stories that dominated the early 1900s Instead they strove for the “artful approach to the significant moment.” –Frank O’Connor Anton Chekhov: Russian writer, master of realistic detail and understatement Used “slice of life” anecdotes Lack obvious external conflicts, action-packed events, and clear climaxes; instead, the drama rages inside the characters’ minds

The Interior World continued Anti-heroes: conflicted characters engulfed by indecision Language: -subtle and poetic -Must infer what is being left unsaid: “It is no longer necessary to describe; it is enough to suggest.” –H.E. Bates

Hemingway’s Iceberg “There is seven-eighths of it underwater for every part that shows.” –Ernest Hemingway

Features of the Modern Short Story Unspectacular, or everyday, settings Themes of instability and loss Plots without a clear climax or resolution Understatement Irony Stream of consciousness Anti-heroes