SHORT STORY
OUR GROUP : HO ANH DAO
NGUYEN THI HUYEN
MAI THI NHUNG
Definition
History
Features
Types
What is a short story?
a brief fictional prose narrative
usually presents a single significant episode
creates a single dynamic effect
involves a limited number of characters and
situations
usually has between 2, 000 and 10,000 words
HISTORY
Be like a form dates back to the oral tradition of the tale which originally produced epic such as Homer’s Iliad and Odyssey
Other ancient form : the anecdote , was the most popular under the Roman Empire with Gesta Romanorum
1. ORIGIN
-In Europe, the oral tradition began to develop into written stories in early 14th century, most notably with Geoffrey Chaucer’s Canterbury Tales and Giovanni Boccaccio`s Decameron
At the end of the 16th century , some of the most popular short story in Europe were the darkly tragic “novella” of Matteo Bandello (especially in their French translation)
g
The appearance of first modern translation of the Thousand and One Nights ( 1704) would have an enormous influence on the 18th century European short stories.
Short story really begins to emerge as a form in the 19th century
Be an early collection of folk stories that paved the way for the development of the genre of short stories
(1824-1826)
2. MODERN TIME
The first examples of tales that would help in the emerging process of a modern short story in the United States are:

1819


1840

1842
1820
In the mid and late 19th century saw the blossoming of the short story in Britain – Hardy`s Wessex Tales (1888) first major success of a volume of short stories
Hardy (1888)
In the later 19th century, the proliferation of literary magazines and journals in the latter 25 years of the19th century created a market demand for short fiction - stories between 3,000 - 15,000 words
Anton Chekhov (1892).
Short story peaks as a form in the mid 20th century and while still respected, it has become less marketable than its prose cousin, the novel with a number of high profile magazines such as:
The period following World War II saw a great flowering of literary short fiction in the United States
1948
1953
1952,
1955
3. THE POST – WAR ERA
-Cultural and social identity played a considerable role in much of the short fiction of the 1960s
-Philip Roth and Grace Paley cultivated distinctive Jewish-American voices
-James Baldwin’s “Going to Meet the Man” told stories of African-American life
-Frank O’Connor’s “The Lonely Voice,” a classic exploration of the short story, appeared in 1963.
-Minimalism gained widespread influence in the 1980s, most notably in the work of Raymond Carver, Ann Beattie and Bobbi Ann Mason.
-However, traditionalists including John Updike and Joyce Carol Oates maintained significant influence on the form, as did Canadian author Alice Munro
-John Gardner’s seminal reference text, “The Art of Fiction”, appeared in 1983
Many of the American short stories of the 1990s feature magical realism
Tim O’Brien’s “The Things They Carried" tackled the legacy of the Vietnam War.
T. C. Boyle and David Foster Wallace explored the psychology of popular culture
FEATURES OF SHORT STORY
WHEN
SETTING
WHERE
MOOD
SOCIAL CONDITIONS
WEATHER CONDITIONS
PLOT
PLANNED
LOGICAL
EVENTS
INTRODUCTION
The characters and the setting be revealed
RISING ACTION
The events become complicated ;
The conflict is revealed
CLIMAX
Highest point of interest and
the turning point
FALLING ACTION
The events begin to resolve themselves
DENOUEMENT
Final outcome of events
CONFLICT
DF
Be essential to plot
Provide the central source of tension and drama that make stories interesting to read
TYPE
External
Internal
KIND
Man & Man
Man & Circumstances
Man & Society
Man & Himself/ Herself
Character
DF: A person who is portrayed in an artistic piece and the combination of qualities and/or attributes....
POINT OF VIEW
Be defined as the angle from which the story is told
Innocent Eye
Stream of Consciousness
First person
Omniscient
Omniscient Limited
Omniscient
Object ive
THEME
Be its controlling idea or its central insight
Be the author’s main idea …………
Be the author’s thoughts about a topic or view of human nature
The title
Notice repeating patterns and symbols.
Allusion
The details & particulars
Theme
Some common themes
Things are not always as they appear to be
Love is blind
Believe in yourself
People are afraid of change
Don’t judge a book by its cover
Types of short story
Drabble
Drabble is an extremely short work of fiction exactly one hundred words in length, although the term is often incorrectly used to indicate a short story of fewer than 1000 words. The purpose of the drabble is brevity, testing the author`s ability to express interesting and meaningful ideas in an extremely confined space.
Dabble who (1993) by David J. Howe
Feghoot
A story pun (also known as a poetic story joke or Feghoot) is a humorous short story or vignette ending in an atrocious pun (typically a play on a well-known phrase) where the story contains sufficient context to recognize the punning humor.
The Escape by W. Somerset Maugham.
Flash Fiction
Flash fiction is a style of fictional literature or fiction of extreme brevity. There is no widely accepted definition of the length of the category. Some self-described markets for flash fiction impose caps as low as 300, while others consider stories as long as 1000 words to be flash fiction.
Reconstruction Work (2007) by Bruce Holland Rogers
Flash Prose
Flash prose, also known as flash literature, is brief creative writing, generally on the order of between 500 and 1500 words. It`s also an umbrella term that encompasses various short format works such as prose poetry, short essays and other works of creative fiction and nonfiction.
Rain (1932) by William Somerset Maugham
SKETCH STORY
A sketch story, or sketch, is a piece of writing that is generally shorter than a short story, and contains very little, if any, plot. The term was most popularly-used in the late nineteenth century. As a literary work, it is also often referred to simply as the sketch.
Vignette is a short impressionistic scene that focuses on one moment or gives a trenchant impression about a character, an idea, or a setting. This type of scene is more common in recent postmodern theater, where less emphasis is placed on adhering to the conventions of theatrical structure and story development.
Vignette
Irish short story
The Irish Short Story traces its origins to the ancient Gaelic tradition of story-telling. Many of Ireland’s greatest writers have used and developed the short story in its modern form.
Lord Arthur Savile`s Crime and Other Stories written by Oscar Wilde
THANK FOR YOUR ATTENTION
1. A series of related events(what happens in the story).
Theme
Setting
Plot
Irony
2. The time and place of the story.
Foreshadowing
Setting
Science Fiction
Plot
REVIEW QUESTIONS
3. The main idea or author`s opinion about life expressed in a piece of literature.
Theme
Non – Fiction
Setting
Exaggeration
4. Arrange the following short stories chronologically : (1) Twice Told Tales ; (2)Rip van Winkle ;(3)The legend of Sleepy Hollow; (4)Tales of the Grotesque and Arabesque
2; 1; 4; 3
2; 3; 4; 1
4; 1; 3; 2
3; 4; 1; 2
5. Where did short story originally come from?
Epic
Novel
Drama
D. Fairy tale
6. When did short story really begin to emerge as a genre?
16th
B. 17th
C. 18th
D. 19th

7. How many basic types of short story are there in English literature?
5
6
7
8