英美文学赏析

Reading and Writing about Literature

Compiled by

Wang Langlang

Xiamen University

2007

Revised and adapted from

Aho, William, ed. Reading and Writing about Short Stories. Unpublished manuscript, 2003.

Wang Shouren and Zhao Yu, eds. British and American Fiction. Nanjing: Nanjing Unversity Press, 1994.

Yuan Xianjun and Qian Kunqiang eds.Approaching Fiction. Beijing: Beijing University Press, 2004

Foote, David W., et al. Contemporary Short Stories. New York: McDougal, Littell and Company, 1996.

Short stories and poems texts taken from various Internet libraries.

Part I

Reading and Writing about Short Stories

Introduction

Everyone has a story of some kind to tell. In ancient times, before TV and the printing press, story telling was the chief amusement—nearly the only entertainment in town. Music and stories whiled away long nights, and the yarn-spinners that most cleverly embellished their tales were usually honored guests at campfires and tables. Polished and honed stories of valor and conquest also became the primary means of transferring cultural values to the next generation. A clever hero inspired emulation; a despised villain invoked ridicule.

The value of a good story, taken as a whole, considers both the literal and the implied meaning, and thus is always greater than the sum of these two parts. There are nebulous aspects of tone and style in literature that affect emotions, and are often difficult to pinpoint. Attempts to explain the unexplainable impact of literature on the human mind and soul has kept critics occupied since Plato

Readers of fiction are awakened to the common denominations of human nature. Although times, places, and peoples change, the human struggle repeats itself with different names. Inhabitants of this planet past and present, represent one people and literature recreates this common ground. Daily life, romance, hope, despair, fear, love, hate, good and evil are the matter of life in every age and every culture from Homer, to Shakespeare, to Hemingway. By studying literature we realize we are not so different as we may have thought.

Good stories survive because of the fresh and startling ideas and insights they offer. Ideas and insight have the power to liberate our minds and our imaginations and to cause us to reflect critically about our own values, beliefs, and assumptions.

The short stories in this text are carefully chosen for two purposes: to delight the reader, and to serve as illustrations of rhetorical techniques that turn reporting into literature. Getting a grip on these techniques is the key to the enjoyment and analysis of the art of literary communication.