My View of Short Stor12.doc

My View of Short StoryIllustrated with “The Widow of Ephesus”, “Misery” “A Rose for Emily”摘要：文学作品的体裁多种多样，每一种体裁都有各自的特点。本文主要是我的短篇小说观。先从结构上阐述了短篇小说的构成要素，,以及不可或缺的写作技巧。我们都知道文学作品多是从日常生活中取材，来源生活，服务生活。要反映现实，要让读者能切身体会到作品所说，或许更深层次一点，能让读者找到共鸣，指点迷津。虽然成功的短篇小说家有很多，优秀作品也不少，但是这类体裁还是存在一定的问题，某些时候，过于把精力放在吸引读者眼球上，本末倒置，企图找到成功的捷径。这些都是不正确的，我们应该激昂短篇小说的特点发扬光大，拒绝投机取巧。关键词：短篇小说，技巧，现实，构成要素，结构特点1. IntroductionNarratives have long existed in human history, maybe at first they were just for fun, without other deep meanings, didactic or moral lessons. As revealed by Egyptian papyri, sons of Khufu, the Egyptian king of the 4th dynasty, amused and entertained their father with narrative.1 Western literature first dated back to Greek and Roman classics. Later, it spread to Europe, after a long-time development, and until sixteen and seventeen centuries, novel has become a formal kind of storytelling. At first, they were used to entertain, or being didactic. In 19th century, short story finally stepped onto the stage as a distinct literary genre. With the efforts of many writers, short story grew gradually. It went mature when Poe rationalized his own artistic practices into a theory of the short story. Poe said a successful writer should create short stories which could be done reading at a single sitting, and gave readers a vivid, continuing impression. Like other literary works, short story has its own elements and techniques, and unique characteristics of its structure. Besides, we must learn the relation between reality and fiction. Try to overcome some problems existing in the short story, to make it more perfect. 2. Talking About the Structure of Short Story Like full-length novels, short story also consists of setting, atmosphere, plot, character, and theme. What is different is the length, so the way to show these elements is not the same. The former one has enough volume to describe, while the latter one must be concise and short. A good piece of short story, no matter how short it is, wont miss either of these elements. Sometimes, one certain element is irreplaceable. As for the setting, it could be a geographical place, a certain period of time or general condition related to the character, such as religion, occupation and so on. At times, setting is not very important, like in “Hills Like White Elephants”, but at most times, setting is important, we can take one for example from our text book, “A Rose for Emily”. In this short story setting is of great importance. If we do not know Emily was living in the South, we will not understand the background and the moral creed. In “The Widow of Ephesus”, the atmosphere was indispensable, for it began with a womans husband death, a maid accompanying her to keep vigil beside the coffin. In the tomb, everything seemed heart-broken, all of these aimed to show the widows sorrow, the widow cried and cried, and her grief almost killed her. The whole setting was enveloped with sadness, but in the later part, the widow gave us a great surprise, which made a vivid contrast. The widow was so hypocritical, also being kind of a tension. For the tomb should be some place to mourn the dead person, while the widow and the soldier made it a bridal chamber. Other than these two characters, a soldier was also shaped in this story. Speaking of plot, which can be described as the authors manipulation of the events of his works, which also aims at making maximum artistic effects for the readers, Forster once said, a sequential order of events is the story, while the casual arrangement of events is the plot. So plot is not necessary to conform to the sequential limit. In other words, plots do not have to begin at the beginning of an action, could being flashback, which can attract the attention of the readers with the ending, for the readers want to know what lead to the result. In “A Rose for Emily”, at the beginning, Faulkner told us the whole town people were mourning Miss Emily. Through his eyes, Emily was very respectable in this town, and he used a monument falling down to describe her death. Why? I think most of the readers will utter this question. So the plot was made very successful, it tempting the readers to explore, to discover the reason. As for character, of course it is very important. If there are no character, then there wont be motivation, without motivation, there wont be plot, they working like a chain. Theme is absolutely the most important part in a short story. All the parts of the story should be written to support the theme, and vise versa, without a theme, the whole story will be like a human body missing his or her skeleton. While discovering the theme of the story, you must connect the “story” you are reading with the outside world. This process is not easy, so there are many different themes brought by different people according to the same story. As in the “Misery”, some of students absorbed the theme with their own opinion, which I took for example as follows, human beings must utter their grief, even if only to an animal, human beings are indifferent to the sufferings of the others, deep suffering is incommunicable, but the sufferer must try to find an outlet. In my opinion I think the second one is more related to the storys theme. Readers have to remember, when they want to find the theme, they should analyze the things beyond the elements. The artistic structure of short story is quite different from that of novel. To learn about the structure, we have to acquire an understanding of its characteristics. First of all, unlike novel telling a long and complete period of our daily life, short story will only tell a comparatively shorter period. It usually takes a part of the whole daily life, and to summarize it. Second, it has a smaller volume, so there wont be too many characters, too many setting, and too much descriptions of characters inside thinking. On the other hand, it must give us a vivid impression of the characters and let us know the theme of the article. So we could say short story features in the following parts: short but pithy, concise, characters full and round, unique language and so on. Gorky once brought up three basic requirements to the young writers, he said, a good piece of short story should describe surroundings vividly, shape the characters in a vigorous way, and choose the right and vivid language. All these requirements are from the prospective of features of short story. Luxun was a great world-renown maestro; he also told us some of his opinions when it came to matters related to short story. He thought the essence of short story lied in that we can know all the happenings with the reference of a tip of the iceberg. Just because one characteristic of short story “knows all the happenings with the reference of a tip of the iceberg”, we must pay great attention to its structure. The structure must be logically rigorous, the setting must being condensed. Some people said the plot of this genre should be set in this way, one climax following another one, making the whole story to be ebb and flow. Although this point is good, but the reality always make you disappointed, for it can not be true. In terms of some full-length novel, medium length novel, this wish might be realized, while short story must be condensed and concise, using the least words to express more. Of course, a good piece of story should consist of exposition, development, climax and denouncement, but this is not absolute, there are exceptions. Strictly speaking, there only has one climax, which really conforms to the characteristics of short story. If we produce many climaxes on purpose, and we have the limit of the volume, so it is very difficult to make a compromise. To produce one climax after another, writer will be distracted, enlarging the volume, making a short story a condensed medium-length novel, or just an outline of full-length novel. Nowadays, some problems show themselves, for example, the length of short story is beyond control, becoming longer and longer. Besides, what is worse, some writer intends to pursue “coincidence”, resulting in irrationality. Why is this happening? Maybe there are mainly two reasons; on the one hand, the writers did not experience a lot in the society, not possessing enough storage of thinking and artistic opinions, on the other hand, they did not acquire the right skill of writing a short story, in other word, they did not understand the characteristics of it very well.Short, with the most concise language, producing the most colorful contents, leaving the readers enough room to imagine and think, all of these are the most common points in wonderful pieces of worksshort story. In structure, short story has its own law, not too long, not too detailed, not too easy to understand, in a word, consisting enough “surprising plot”. Besides, material that short story based on should not be too clich, too general, that is, one key word of short story is concise. It aims to show us the most wonderful part of our daily life. Speaking of concise, short, lets illustrate one short story in our text book-an introduction to literature, the name is “The Widow of Ephesus”. The story only has two pages, very short, but it did give us a vivid impression of three main characters, the widow, the soldier, and the maid. The story tells us how hypocritical the widow was, first pretending to be virtuous, greatly sad because of her husbands death, but suddenly seduced by a handsome soldier in the tomb. If in a full-length novel, I think this change of the widow will take up a comparatively larger part. Author will pay much attention to describe all the reasons, the environment, the psychological part of human being, but in this short story, all are brief, the change is thunderous, which make it more sarcastic. And the ending is very surprising. We could get to know their individual characteristic. Although it is very short, exposition, development, climax and denouncement are not missing. 3. Technique, Indispensable PartAfter some descriptions about short storys history, elements, characteristics of structure, now Id like to pay my attention to its techniques. Generally speaking, technique includes point of view, symbolism, style, tone and irony, all of which makes a piece of work more colorful. We know, to some extent, all literary works are stories told by someone, without caring the identity of the storyteller. What he need is to find a persona to tell a story without being sensitive. Point of view can make the author feel free to tell the story as whatever role as he wants. Point of view is the way to tell a story. Mainly there are three kinds. In terms of the relationship between the teller and the tale, there are first person point of view, and the third person point of view. In terms of credibility of the teller, there is reliable, unreliable and innocent point of view. The third kind includes omniscient, selective omniscient points of view. In “The Widow of Ephesus”, writer tells the story from the third person point of view and the omniscient point of view. Using this two means, author is very objective, without injecting his own opinion, providing our readers the original one. By that, we can read the story according to our own mind, not influenced by the author. When it comes to symbolism, we both know the significance of this technique. If the writer wants to show us a deeper meaning or something inconvenient to say directly, he will shape a symbol in his works. The proper use of symbol can transform some abstract moral virtues into concrete images, in order to leave readers a vivid impression, at the same time, to express some implicate meaning indirectly, and to give a deep meaning to the story. All aim to leave readers enough room to think and appreciate. Symbol can appears in the passage as images, repetition, connotative language or other artistic devices. In “A Rose for Emily”, we can see Emily as an image to show the whole southern peoples tradition, life, to describe their way of life, their lagging behind, their decayed material life and spiritual life. As a writer living in the southern part of the United States, Faulkner use a lot of symbols to depict Emilys image, and all he did was to expose the conflict between the developing society and the stay-still southern degenerate social laws and the like. Maybe because he himself is southern, it is not convenient for him to say some bad things directly, so he used symbolism, making the meaning more significant. Imagery is also important in writing short story. I remember in the former part, I have talked about the importance of atmosphere, which is used to play up a kind of atmosphere, for example, using cloudy sky, the surrounding deathly still, this picture can let us feel depressed, feeling something bad might happen. In “A Rose for Emily”, at the beginning of the story, there are many images, such as “scrolled balcony” “cotton wagon” “gasoline pump” “squarish frame house” and so on, all the images shows the old and decayed surroundings of this small southern town. To some deeper extent, it exposes the degenerate way of life in the southern part, taking Emily as a represent of the whole town. They would not face the changing of outside world. Style is the manner of a sentence, not its matter. Style is a revelation of an individual, or a place or a certain period, for example, Hemingway Style. Every author has his or her own style. A successful writer will be recognized at once when his works are being appreciated, for his usual writing way, symbol, language, psychological matters of characters and so on. Take Faulkner as an example, he has his own style, and he made up a little town called Yoknapatawpha County. Many of his short stories happened in this county. He is a southern people, so he injects a unique humor of southern people into his works, describing the status of the white and the black, and something very sensitive like that, so as to depict a lifelike and vivid image of southern people. This is his style. Every time we read a passage, if this passage is telling stories about the southern part of America, we will guess whether it is Faulkners works or not.4. From Reality, for Reality.Short story, or we can say, the works of literature, generally they are based on reality, and vise versa, they have some influence on reality, the readers, and so on. If you just treat story as a reflection of authors flow of mind, not to describe some objective matters, you will narrow authors writing about our daily life. For a good writer, he or she should put himself or herself in the daily life, to know the life, to understand the life, to express life, these should being put in the first place. I remember Luxun has some opinions about the short story. Look, these are our Chinese people; the life in it is belonging to us.” Not only had you existed in the story, but also me and him or her. Every people could find his own figure in the story. But, sometimes, it drags you to get onto a level where you can not pursue in your daily life. There, you can observe all of the things, experience them, and feel something you will never feel commonly. These will m