Review of Chekhov story

RAJEET GUHA NEW SCHOOL FINAL PAPER Anton Chekhov was a world-class writer from Russia. He wrote some of the finest plays and short stories in the history of humankind. It is in these short stories and plays that his literary genius and artistic creativity was abundantly on display. Although his formal training was in medicine, he found fame and fortune in his literary endeavors. Notwithstanding his premature death at the untimely age of forty-four at the beginning of the twentieth century, as a writer and a literary colossus, he is an immortal who stands tall and toweringly above plenty of other renowned writers. Chekhov was a prolific short story writer and a playwright whose works have withstood the test of time and is savored even today in the post-industrial age by literary buffs, literary critics, literary icons, and casual readers as well. His short stories and dramas occupy a place perennially in the pantheon of luminous literature. In the following paragraphs, one of his eminently readable stories will be discussed. The incandescent story that will be discussed is titled ‘Enemies’. This short story is a tour de force. He penned it down when he was approaching the peak of his powers in literary creation. Chekhov’s magisterial command over symbolism, realism and naturalism is evident in the short story. Chekhov’s short stories were vivid with description. This story is too vivid with description. Chekhov’s mastery over sensory prose is palpably on display in this chef d’oeuvre. This story is an invaluable jewel in the Chekhovian oeuvre. This splendid short story shows an acute insight into human nature. Chekhov’s powers of perception and impeccable portrayal of human nature is showcased in this short story. This transcendent tale captures the Zeitgeist of the latter part of the 19th century Russia remarkably well. The setting is Tsarist Russia of the Romanov dynasty. In the twilight of 19th century reactionary Russia, Czar Nicholas II was the absolute ruler. A stark and compelling contrast between the two highly stratified classes namely the rich and the poor shown immaculately in this melancholic masterpiece of a short story. This is a well-plotted and rich story. A conflict or nouement arises in the narrative when the Abogin arrives all of a sudden at the district doctor Kirilov’s house at an inauspicious hour. The crisis or climax takes place when the rich guy Abogin discovers astoundingly that his wife has ditched him and eloped with a friend of his. The rich guy Abogin is psychologically shattered, as he understands the bitter truth that his wife and friend have duped him. Abogin’s servants are also in cahoots with his wife. He becomes doleful and broken hearted after intuitively knowing about the treachery of his friend, perfidy and infidelity of his wife and also the collusion of the servants in this surreptitious and sordid betrayal. The narrative’s next phase is the anticlimax. The anticlimactic moment happens soon when the doctor Kirilov realizes that there in nothing wrong with Abogin’s wife and is incensed with Abogin for frittering away his valuable time. Kirilov thinks that a practical joke has been played on him after intuitively understanding that Abogin’s wife is as fit as a fiddle and is a scheming woman that has staged such an elaborate charade to run away with her lover. At this point of time, Kirilov is livid as he feels that he is the victim of a cruel joke. Kirilov becomes enraged and rancorous towards Abogin. Kirilov vents out his spleen at his host Abogin for taking away his precious time. The doctor Kirilov feels his invaluable time has been snatched and sullied from him at a moment of unmitigated sorrow in his life, a time when his kid Andrey has succumbed to diphtheria. Instead of mourning the irreversible and irreparable loss of his six-year old son, shedding tragic tears over the fact that his kid has kicked the bucket, and sharing his grief with his inconsolable wife, he is infuriated when he realizes that Abogin has taken him cross-country on a wild goose chase. Kirilov feels that Abogin has rubbed salt on his wounds. The doctor’s dormant class-consciousness has suddenly arisen and become as active as a volatile volcano. The doctor, who lives in penury and has had his life turned topsy-turvy after his helpless child has been snatched away by the Grim Reaper. The doctor Kirilov feels that this fabulously and filthy rich guy Abogin, who is a microcosm of the wealthy classes, has for his frivolous pursuits and indulgences, robbed him of invaluable time that he could have spent with his wife to share their bereavement together in their hour of crisis. Kirilov’s character and personality is suddenly metamorphosed. Kirilov now has nothing but utter contempt and hatred for the wealthy. Kirilov’s fury and malice towards the wealthy folk has been ignited by the actual substantial loss in his family and his perceived sense of deception by Abogin. Coupled with the lamentable loss of his innocent child, the decadent and opulent lifestyle led by the rich with its litany of frivolities in the guise of unhappiness, cuts Kirilov to the quick. Kirilov loses his shirt and confronts a disoriented Abogin, who is taken aback by the doctor’s wrath. The resolution or denouement is when the enraged doctor Kirilov is driven back to his house by the Abogin’s driver. Abogin, at the same time in the denouement leaves his house and goes off in the elusive quest for his wife. The story is written in the third person omniscient narrator point of view. The protagonist is the doctor Kirilov, whose psyche and thinking are dramatically altered. Thus, according to Hill’s law, point of view holds in this story. Kirilov is the protagonist of the story. Abogin is the antagonist in this story. Symbolism in the story: At the beginning of the story, there is a sharp ringing of the bell in the entry. The bell sounds sharper than usual, as this is a titanic tragedy for the family. Any noise becomes amplified. There is symbolism here. Again, there is symbolism when it is said that it is between nine and ten on a dark September evening that the bell rings. The summary of a dark evening indicates a funereal atmosphere. September evening foreshadows something depressing, as September is the melancholic, autumn season when the trees shed their leaves and is a harbinger of difficult times to come in the winter. We again see symbolism here. The summary of the stillness of the drawing room increasing the doctor’s numbness symbolizes death, shock, and the suspension of time. Life in this small family has come to a standstill. It is as if time has been suspended infinitely. There is symbolism manifest in the summary. Realism in the story: The summary where the doctor’s wife sank on her knees by the dead child’s bedside and was overwhelmed by the first rush of despair is an instance of realism in the story. It is a realistic portrayal of how a crushed mother would react when her son, the apple of her eye, has passed away. Abogin’s persistent pleas to the district doctor Kirilov are in the mode of realism here as Abogin is an affectionate and uxorious husband desperate to save his wife’s life. Also, the fact that Abogin speaks in brief, jerky sentences and utters unnecessary words show he is panic stricken. This is really realistic. Kirilov’s unsteady, mechanical step is also as realistic as it gets. Realism is embedded here as Kirilov is understandably disoriented after his whirlwind loss. Naturalism in the story: In the summary of a paragraph in the story, there is plenty of naturalism where it says that the carriage drove into dense shadow and there was the smell of dampness and mushrooms, and also the sound of rustling trees. There is also naturalism evident when we know that the crows, awakened by the noise of the wheels, stirred among the foliage and uttered plaintive cries. Vivid description and sensory prose is served with a naturalist flavor when it is said that the carriage was swaying from side to side and crunched over the stones as it drove up the sandy bank and rolled on its way. Further, it is said that in the dim light of the stars, the road could be seen and the riverside willows were vanishing into the darkness. In addition it is said that on the right lay a plain as uniform and boundless as the sky and also that there on the dim light the peat marshes were glimmering. A hill with tufted bushes has also been mentioned. Lastly, it is said that above the hill stood a motionless, big, red, half moon, slightly veiled with mist and encircled by tiny clouds. All these lines are replete with naturalism. The above mentioned paragraph typifies naturalism in the story. Scene and Summary: The scenes surrounding the dear departed child’s demise have been aptly summarized. This is congruent with the writerly skills of Chekhov, as the demise of the darling child is just the background. The child’s passing away is not the focal point of the story. The meat of the plot concerns the twist towards the end of the story when the Abogin understands and sees that his wife has put wool over his eyes and eloped with his friend. It is at this point of time that the foreground of the story shines radiantly when there is an animated argument and consequent cacophonic conflict between Abogin and Kirilov. The foreground is shown explicitly in scenes between Kirilov and Abogin. The scenes between Kirilov and Abogin are shown superbly with direct dialogue. This is pertinent as Kirilov is the protagonist and Abogin is the antagonist. Scenes between these two dramatis personae must be shown with direct dialogue. The heated and explosive sparring between Kirilov and Abogin towards the end is also foreshadowed in the beginning of the story in a scene where an understandably peevish Kirilov and the persistently supplicating Abogin are engaged in a conversation. Scene, Summary and Class Conflict: The closing scenes in the story show the animosity between Kirilov and Abogin. Kirilov belongs to the have nots while Abogin belongs to the haves. The simmering hatred and the tension lurking in the hearts of the have-nots towards the haves have been manifest in the last few scenes of the story when Kirilov says that he doesn’t understand why Abogin insulted his dignity and made a mockery of his suffering. Kirilov thinks it is because the rich feel they have the license to denigrate the poor. This is an example of a direct dialogue that casts light on the animosity between the classes. Kirilov mocks Abogin’s heartbreak and purported suffering. Kirilov also was savagely sarcastic when he remarked hat spendthrifts and the potbellied rich were unhappy. Again, the abundant animosity between the rich and the poor have been underscored here. Theme and Analysis: In this short story, multiple themes of adultery, elopement, deception, death, misery, sorrow, bereavement, duty, compassion, jealousy, fury, hatred have been explored. Chekhov has caricatured the lives of the rich and wealthy. The whims and fancies of the wealthy, their Corinthian and extravagant lifestyles of excess have been satirized subtly by Chekhov. Chekhov’s satire is not of the savage and scathing Swiftian kind. Chekhov has given a glimpse of the life of the poor. Chekhov has perceptively portrayed the Dickensian misery of the Russian have-nots. This story is prescient as in a nutshell it shows how tense class relations were in contemporary Russian society. Class was a powder keg in Russia at that time. It is this deep-seated class-consciousness and class difference and consequent class alienation and antagonism of post-Emancipation 19th century Russia that has been depicted deftly in this classic. Conclusion: It is this class-consciousness and animalistic antagonism that was exploited ruthlessly by the newly emerging coalition of peasants, workers, liberal intelligentsia, reformers and revolutionaries alike. This class-consciousness reached its crescendo in the 1917 October Revolution orchestrated by the Bolsheviks. In addition to delving into the embryonic idea of class conflict in the incipiently industrialized and regressive Romanov Russia, this story also explores the transient and evanescent nature of life. The short life expectancy of the 19th century and the relatively lowly developed state of healthcare in Russia are demonstrated here in this story. The paucity of educated professionals like doctors is also amply on display. The story is also a commentary on the low level of economic and social development in Russia relative to other European powers. It paints a pitiable picture of the poor folk in iniquitous and unequal Russia of the late nineteenth century. In this story, there is a pathetic portrait of life in Russia, where there was only a small middle class that was sandwiched between two extremes: wealthy and poor. This story is a satire on the iniquity, inequality, poverty, gluttony, extravagance and libertine morals of Imperial Russia in the latter part of the 19th century.

Review 11

Rajeet Guha New School Homework 11 Revision is the ultimate step in crafting any story, which is in itself a labor of love. Even the most memorable stories from the most marquee authors in the pantheon of literature have come from copious amounts of time and energy being spent on it. The great realist Russian writer Anton Chekhov himself said that writerly talent was fused from diligence and perseverance. Creative writing incontrovertibly stems from original thinking and mental innovation but not solely. A writer’s genius is articulated not just through inventive ideas expressed in narratives but also through the painstaking process of revision with beads of sweat dripping down from the writer’s forehead and eyes that have reddened from a cornucopia of reading, writing, rereading and rewriting. Creative genius manifest in world class works of fiction stems not just from a sliver of inspiration but primarily from pitiless perspiration, the bulwark of literary creation. Every single element of fiction endures baptism by fire in an endless effort to produce a veritable work of art. Rewriting is a cathartic process for a writer where he is transfigured from a toothless tyro to a matured maven. Reader response in story workshops goes without saying in revising a story. It is through feedback from the educated and erudite audience that the writer understands the flaws and strengths of his work. It is with the pertinent and concrete feedback that writers reexplore their plots, themes, characters, symbols, points of view, etc. and endeavor to make their work flawless. Besides culling superfluous information, introducing new settings, discovering new themes, reevaluating point of view or making characterizations richer, it is imperative to be an unsparing and unrelenting critic of one’s work in one’s quest for perfection. Finally, it is advisable to often revisit the story after the passage of a few months. This often brings a new perspective and a fresh outlook to the story that it would have been devoid of previously. New revelations come after a break from the work of writing. Notes on Keith is a short piece of nonfictional writing by the highly decorated author Ron Carlson. Ron Carlson has written a short essay on what motivated him to write his short story Keith. He succinctly explains how he fleshed out the details of this story of his. Ron Carlson says that he hadn’t rehearsed or meticulously planned the story in his head like an essay. Rather, the story flowed spontaneously like a river and on its tumultuous journey like a great natural water body encountered unforeseen obstacles that compelled it to take other routes and trajectories that altered the themes, plots, symbols, motifs, voices and points of view of the story. As Carlson wrote the story, the story took on a life of its own over which Carlson had little control. The characters in the story spoke for themselves and had suddenly come to life like Pinocchio, who if I were to digress a bit was a pathological prevaricator. The story evolved as he wrote and rewrote. There was needless to say a lot of blood, sweat and tears expended to metamorphose a rough, unsophisticated first draft to a polished and finely wrought work of act that was majestically on display for the reception, pleasure and indulgence of the public. In the following paragraph, it will be expressed how Carlson tinkered about with the story and its competing narratives before settling on the finished product. Carlson said that the germination of the idea of this story came when he had gone to a hospital to look up one of his friends. In the corridor of this hospital he was stunned by the sight of a young and pulchritudinous female walking gingerly. He was perplexed as to what had driven that lady to come to the hospital as she was in the flower of her youth. It is later on while he taught high school children and witnessed its drama that he realized that the enigmatic woman that he had observed in the hospital and who was haunting him ever since had not been ill and instead had been taking a peregrination to the hospital on a mere whim. Other details came from a smorgasbord of other experiences. Moments of epiphany or Eureka moments organically evolved while writing multiple drafts of the story. Keith is a gem of a short story. It is one of Ron Carlson’s finest stories. It is part of his collection of short stories titled ‘Hotel Eden’. It is a short story written in the third person omniscient point of view. The point of view is subjective rather than objective. The public might mistakenly think that Keith is the protagonist of the story. Keith is the antagonist of the story. The protagonist of the story is Barbara. Barbara’s personality and life are totally transformed after she meets Keith, her chemistry lab partner in the senior year of high school. Barbara is an all-rounder. She tops her classes and is a superb sportswoman. She also has an abundance of leadership and managerial skills. She has a dashing and handsome boyfriend who lavishes gifts on her. The other girls in the class are green with envy towards her. The icing on the cake is that she has been accepted at Brown University, an Ivy League school that so many dream of going to. Nonetheless, Barbara is not a careerist through and through. She is not always her own person and does not always display a mind of her own. She seems to have shackled herself with wrong and misleading notions of feminine nature that have been foisted upon by the constructs of patriarchal society. She is not yet a completely liberated woman in her mind and believes in playing second fiddle to Brian, her swashbuckling boyfriend. Subsequently she is caught in the horns of a dilemma as to whether she should go to Brown in Rhode Island or instead stay at home and attend a local university with Brian, her knight in shining armor who is cavalierly guy and treats life with nonchalant insouciance. It is Keith, her shy, quirky and sphinxlike chemistry laboratory partner who craftily creates conflicts in her fickle mind. Keith cleverly disguises his latent dates with Barbara as innocuous, platonic meetings and stealthily unlocks the key to her heart. Keith, who is suffering from cancer and undergoing chemotherapy, seduces Barbara with a combination of chutzpah and enigmatic charm. Barbara falls out of love with Brian. Keith supplants Brian and Barbara is head over heels in love with Keith after his prolonged absence from school and terrible haircut make her realize that he is terminally ill. Barbara’s attraction to Keith partly stems from compassion and commiseration and partly from realizing Keith’s benevolent nature. Keith deftly makes Barbara understand that Brian with his cavalier attitude wants her interests to be completely subservient to his. Keith subtly hints to Barbara that Brian wants to rob her of her identity and wants her to genuflect before him. Keith enlightens Barbara with the fact that she should think of herself and her career first and foremost. Barbara, with the aid of Keith, understands that the world is her oyster. Subsequently she decides to attend Brown University and defenestrate Brian. Meanwhile in the melodramatic penultimate scene Barbara bids Keith a touching, tender and farewell at the airport. Keith passes away after some time. The penultimate scene witnesses a bittersweet ending. The story arouses pathos and compassion in the readers. The tragic tale has some foreshadowing as Keith’s baldness and his long absence from school insinuated the fact that he had cancer. The choice of chemistry laboratory instead of a physics, biology or computer laboratory suggested the narrative would have romance as a theme. The fact that they were chemistry lab partners purported that there would be amorous relations between. Finally, death is a theme. Death is the ultimate and undeniable truth in the lives of mortals. Tragic as it may sound, death trumps over love, romance, relationships and everything else in the fragile and evanescent lives of humans.

Review 10

Rajeet Guha New School Homework 10 A book reader or a moviegoer has practiced the art of fooling oneself as long as he or she is immersed in the fictional form. He or she has deferred incredulity for the time being until he dog-ears his or her book or watches the movie in its entirety. Despite being cognizant of the fact that we have jettisoned scientific skepticism temporarily, the audience is seldom immune to new sensations encountered by their bodies or psychological changes experienced by them. Rarely can the reader or viewer extricate himself or herself from the spectrum of emotions that accompany such reading or watching. Knowledge of the mirage of unreality embedded in fiction drives aesthetic gratification. Aesthetic gratification is profound when there is verisimilitude in fiction. Verisimilitude is an innate ingredient in any art. Verisimilitude is a verity that is tenable in any art form like poetry, music, painting, sculpture or rhetoric. The use of figures of speech in literature like simile, metaphor, cliché, conceit, hyperbole, double entendre, pun, metonymy, symbol, motif, allegory, etc. make it inevitably inseparable from a semblance to reality ingrained in it. A subtle understanding and discerning use of such figures of speech creates verisimilitude and subsequently results in aesthetic gratification. A writer must know what figure of speech to use where and when appropriately in the text and above all in what context. The writer must contrast and evaluate the relative merits and flaws of each and every figure of speech pertinent to the sentence and paragraph. It is essential for the author to neither have a paucity of figurative speech nor have a superfluity of it. After having compared the figurative use of language in literature as encapsulated in similes, metaphors, symbols, motifs, allegories, hyperboles, puns, double entendre, conceits, clichés, etc. it will be apposite to talk about theme in literature. Theme is of paramount importance in literature. A work of literature can have an overarching theme or multiple themes may be discussed. A theme refers not just to the fictional form and content in literature but also to the salient ideas, abstractions or philosophies discussed or touched upon. These ideas, abstractions or philosophies that embody the theme or themes in literature are implicit in the story. Themes are shown and generally not told in literature. Themes are not fables or parables. Theme is not anchored in didactic teaching. Theme can only insinuate indirectly at a moral but never overtly lay it down. Theme makes conjectural judgments from different angles. None of the hypotheses are carved in stone and consequently do not become theories in the strictest sense of the term. Only relative judgments are implied. Absolute judgments are usually refrained from themes in literature. Theme in literature verily utilizes the components of emotion, logic and judgment to portray the happiness and unhappiness of human beings. Each story has a unique mix of emotion, logic and judgment that gives the story its distinctiveness and flavor. A theme of a story can never be rehearsed or planned meticulously in advance. The development of a theme is spontaneous and flows like a river. Like a river encounters obstacles and meanders along its path, the theme or themes in stories is continuously colliding or changing. There are plenty of changes in the development of theme that take place right from penning the first word on the first draft to the finished product of the manuscript. ‘The First Day’ is a short story by the author Edward P. Jones. The narrator of the story is a little girl who is five years old and comes from an extremely modest background. The narration is in the present tense. The narration is in the first person central narrator as the five-year-old narrator is also the protagonist in the story. The first sentence of the story foreshadows the latter developments in the plot. The story is told in flashback by a grown-up woman who reminisces about her first day in school. Her memory of her first day in school is bittersweet. It was the first day for the narrator not just in school but also the first day when a tragic truth about her low socio-economic background and her being the daughter of an uneducated and illiterate single mother revealed itself to her like a bolt from the blue. This was not just give a grievous blow to her self-esteem but shattered her innocent and naïve conception of being in the same societal bracket as her peers. It also irreparably and irreversibly damaged the narrator’s sweet, loving and warm relationship with her mother. The narrator started looking down upon her mother and was ashamed and embarrassed that her mother could not read or write. The narrator’s mother is the antagonist in the story. In fact, the narrator’s teacher who helps her mother fill out the form becomes someone that the girl looks up to and supplants her mother as a role model. The narrator also realizes that her mother does not epitomize earnestness and honesty. The mother does not practice what she preaches. The mother tells her daughter not to stare at others while staring herself at others. The mother is susceptible to double standards. The setting for the story is a lower middle class neighborhood in Washington D.C. inhabited overwhelmingly by black Christian families. These black Christian families struggle to make ends meet in the late 1950s and early 1960s and these people have strong bonding with the church and have hopes of upward mobility. The plot portrays how a protective mother prepares her daughter with care for bracing the first day in school, walks her daughter to school, initial disappointment at not being able to go to the school of the first choice, the mother’s tenacity to get her daughter admitted at another school, taking the help of a teacher to fill out the forms for her daughter and finally taking leave of her daughter as her little one was about to embark on her journey to formal education. The timeworn and the doleful building of the first school is a symbol of rejection while the bright and new building of the second school is a symbol of acceptance. The theme of the story is that formal education is the surest path to upward mobility for the have-nots and the lower rungs of society. There is another theme that is the sacrifice made by parents to see their children get the best in life including education even though they may have been deprived of it themselves. The triumph of perseverance and tenacity over disappointment and despair is another theme. ‘Hotel Touraine’ is a short story written by Robert Olen Butler. It is one of the stories in his collectable collection of short stories. This collection of short stories harks back to the early twentieth century when the entire world was on the cusp of change that would usher in a new era. At this juncture of history in the early twentieth century, picture postcards were a rage in America and Europe. Picture postcards were a popular form of communication at a point in modern history when television was a distant dream and computers was still in the realm of science fiction. Hotel Touraine is a story that emerges in the fecund imagination of the writer with the aid of a picture postcard and a cryptic message scrawled on its back by an obscure person. The plot of the story is well developed. The setting is the first decade of the twentieth century in the city of Boston, Massachusetts. The action takes place mostly in the majestic and magnificent Hotel Touraine of Boston and its adjacent surroundings. The plot of the story is mostly about the interactions of two people from the opposite ends of the economic spectrum; one is a poor, defiant, recalcitrant and rancorous bellhop at the hotel and the other is a rich, depressed, lonely, slovenly, excessively indulgent, conceited, condescending and genteel fellow who lives a decadent lifestyle. The bellhop is the protagonist while the fabulously rich fellow is the antagonist. The bellhop is the first person central narrator whose emotional life is turned topsy-turvy after the tragedy that is the climax. The bellhop is filled with remorse and guilt over having being hostile to the wealthy and melancholic fellow who drowned his misery in alcohol. They both are bitter and dissatisfied in life despite being from opposite poles in society. The plot has a twist at the end akin to the stories of O’ Henry or Maupassant. The ending is bathetic. It arouses pathos in the readers. It is a maudlin tale that shows that appearances are deceptive. It also shows that money and the luxuries that it can buy is no substitute for happiness and tranquility. It also shows the animosities inherent in people of differing economic classes arising from deep-seated inferiority complexes and feelings of envy. The story also shows the inequality in society stemming from an asymmetric distribution of income and wealth. ‘A Man told me the Story of his Life’ is a short short story. The author Grace Paley has written this short or piece of flash fiction. Grace Paley has written this jewel of a short in the third person narrator point of view. The narrator is an obscure person who has interviewed the protagonist of the piece namely Vicente. Vicente is engaged in a monologue. Vicente is allowed to freely speak his own thoughts and talk about his education, his strengths, misguidance in his life by his advisors, his thwarted ambitions, his accidental career, his family, his moment of epiphany, affirmation of his intuition, his psychological triumph and his spiritual salvation so to speak. The antagonists are the school authorities and ultimately the state that prevented him from fulfilling his aspirations and goals of becoming a doctor. The plot is a bit sparse but succinct. The story is narrated in the form of a flashback. The theme of the story is choosing a career that leads to a regular and steady earning or a vocation that one loves but where one’s existence is hand to mouth. Another theme is each individual’s chance to choose a profession of one’s own or an arbitrary and heavy-handed choice by the state. A third theme is that of believing in one’s own intuition and leaving no stone unturned in pursuing one’s dreams no matter how long it takes to get settled over the purported wisdom of elders and authorities in selecting someone’s career. This compressed story is a scathing satire on the education system, educational advisors, the authorities in power and ultimately the state. Winky is a short story written by the writer George Saunders. The story has been written in the third person omniscient narrator point of view. The story’s protagonist is Neil Yaniky. Neil is a nondescript fellow and a bit of a wastrel in life. He is quite unimpressive looking. Neil is Winky’s brother. Winky, who is Neil’s eccentric, devout, kind, clumsy, callow, grotesque looking and scatterbrained sister is the antagonist in the story. We clearly see that the title of the story is misleading in the sense that Winky is certainly the antagonist, not the protagonist. Another important character is the self-help guru and motivational speaker Tom Rodgers who is a smart aleck that has used his charisma, marketing and oratory to make millions and a name for himself by capitalizing on the susceptibility and gullibility of the public. This motivational speaker needles Neil and is cajoling him to realize his American Dream by casting out Winky from his life and household. This motivational speaker is an objectivist like Ayn Rand and a dyed in the wool instrumental rationalist. Instrumental rationality typifies selfishness, covetousness, naked ambition and ruthlessness as personified in the robber barons of the nineteenth century capitalist America like Rockefeller, Carnegie, DuPont, Vanderbilt, etc. The narrative shows Neil clearly being influenced by such self-centered behavior and cupidity for some time until the eleventh hour when an upsurge of compassion and humanity rescue him from the barren spiritual wasteland of avaricious and self-aggrandizing behavior. Winky is a lovable and humane simpleton who finds solace in religion and the amazing grace of Jesus Christ. The narrative shows Winky engaging in an elaborate interior monologue when Neil is away from home. When Neil returns home, he has tender feelings for Winky. Suddenly in a revelatory moment, empathy and compassion for Winky overwhelm his brazenly selfish instincts to rapaciously pursue his lust for wealth and power. Neil is resentful towards Winky but cannot defenestrate her from his household. Neil is going to be reasonable towards Winky and not be instrumental in deracinating her life. Neil realizes he must be a watchful guardian over a defenseless and weak Winky and there is considerable chivalry and heroism in being her guardian angel. Besides they are siblings and need each other to comfort themselves in their hour of despair. Neil realizes and treasures human connections and relationships over money, riches and superficial status symbols. Nonetheless, the story falls flat as the protagonist fails to undergo a metamorphosis. A complete lack of change in character of the protagonist is a damp squib and the climax is never reached in the story. Saunders is a critic of the postmodern philosophy and its impact on literature. He skewers the philosophy of instrumental rationality and its byproduct of untrammelled capitalism. Saunders excoriates the rapaciousness of multinational corporations and the banality of evil prevalent in the unchecked capitalism of the unfettered market. He is a relentless critic of classical liberalism and ultimately advocates the virtues of compassion, communicative rationality and empathy in human beings. Finally, the last short story assigned in the reading was ‘This is what it means to say Phoenix, Arizona.’ It has been written by a celebrated Native American author namely Sherman Alexie. It has been written in the third person omniscient narrator point of view. The plot comprises an American Indian named Victor, who is the protagonist of the story, and an antagonist named Thomas-Builds-the-Fire, another American Indian. With the aid of the device of flashback it is known that Victor and Thomas were bosom buddies in childhood but have become alienated with the efflux of time. They had once in their teens even once been involved in an altercation. They lived in an Indian reservation in the state of Washington. Again in flashback, it is told that Thomas has had his share of trials and tribulations in life. He has always been an orphan. He has been brought up in the reservation and is a loner. He has been shunned by most of the others in the reservation throughout his life as he has been perceived as idiosyncratic and an oddball. He is a soothsayer and has supernatural powers. He can communicate with the spirits of nature and has a gift for storytelling; sometimes even bluntly telling uncomfortable and unpalatable truths. His candor has been a fertile ground for sowing the hostility of others towards him. He is a dyed in the wool Native American. He has a sense of history and is a walking, talking encyclopedia in American Indian history. Victor’s father left him and his mother years ago. After deserting them, Victor’s father spent his days in the dreary desert of Phoenix, Arizona. This event was traumatic for Victor. Victor’s father was an alcoholic who treated his family badly. Victor has led a cavalier life and is not acquainted that well with Native American heritage and culture. He has recently lost his job and soon hears of the demise of his father. He wants to rush to Phoenix but lacks the wherewithal to go there. The Bureau of Indian Affairs does not give him the money necessary for his trip. He has to go to Phoenix to retrieve his father’s body, his father’s truck, some photos, some cash and a few other things. In his hour of need, it is Thomas who saves the day for him. Thomas helps him with the requisite funds. They go by plane to Victor’s father’s place in Phoenix and return home to the reservation after collecting his father’s ashes, a few photos, a pickup truck, cash, checkbook and a few souvenirs. On the way back home to Washington State, Victor apologizes to Thomas for bullying him years ago. Thomas accepts his apology and forgives him. Thomas relates an incident on the way back saying how Victor’s father had once rescued him at Spokane Falls, taken him to a restaurant and drove him back to the reservation. In turn, Victor’s father had pledged Thomas to always look out for Victor. This is exactly what Thomas by providing emotional and material support to Victor in his hour of need. Victor warmed up to Thomas and agreed to listen once to Thomas, the irrepressible storyteller’s story just once. The theme of the story is the poverty and squalor that permeates life in the Indian reservations. The abject and crushing hunger, unabated alcoholism, devastating drug addiction, wicked violence in reservation life creates a Stygian scenario. Such a lamentable situation calls forth lachrymose sentimentality. It shows the execrable exploitation of Native Americans by mainstream politicians. The story also talks about themes of brotherhood, bonding and caring for one’s neighbors and tribe. The story is also about compassion, empathy, magnanimity and forgiveness and finally even an eleemosynary spirit.

Review 9

Rajeet Guha New School Homework 9 Irrespective of whether one reads or listens to a short story or novel, every piece of fiction has a point of view. Every author communicates the work of fiction to the reader or listener from a specific and consistent point of view. Rarely does an author use multiple points of view in a work of literature. Point of view can be in first person, second person or third person. It is a sacrosanct multilateral agreement among the author, the author’s fictional characters and the anonymous readers. Point of view in literature cannot be conflated with opinion. Rather, point of view in literature is akin to perspective or what angle one is looking from at a particular person, event, phenomenon or process. Consistency in point of view in literature leads to one and only one perspective in a novel or story. Seldom in a work of literature are multiple points of view or multi-perspective used. Nonetheless, exceptions can always be made as a writer on occasion switches point of view within the same work. In any story or novel, it is the narrator who speaks. The narrator might or might not be the author. The narrator in a majority of cases speaks directly to the reader. In a minority of the cases, the narrator speaks to someone other than the reading public. In such an unconventional scenario, the reader snoops into a private correspondence between the narrator and the intended recipient. Sometimes, the reader spies or pries into the writer’s private thoughts that are so private that are only for the author’s eyes. Everyone in the world barring the writer is forbidden to read the written narrative. In this case, the writer is narrating the story to himself or herself. The writer in this instance is both the narrator and the intended reader such as in a private diary. In fiction, form is of inestimable importance. Fiction can take the form of prose or verse. In prose, the piece of fiction may be written in the form of a short short story, short story, novella, play, novel, fairy tale, newspaper or magazine report, a confession, a diary entry, a journal, oratory, dramatic monologue, interior monologue or stream of consciousness. Besides form, another notable consideration for the writer is his closeness and relation to the reader. Using specific nouns or verbs, the narrative can have proximity or closeness to the reader. Use of abstract nouns or verbs can keep readers at an arms length from the writer. If the narrative is presented with plenty of dialogue, then the readers will be able to relate to the characters. If the narrative has a lot of summary, then the readers won’t feel an affinity or repulsiveness with the characters. In fiction, it is a dictum that the reader and the author must have a good bonding. Readers should be able to identify with certain characters, sympathize with others and also feel an aversion or even an abhorrence of other characters. In the first person point of view, the pronouns I and We are used. The second person point of view utilizes the pronoun You. The third person point of view uses the pronouns He, She, They, Them, Those and These. In the first person point of view it is the narrator and not the author who is speaking. The first person narrator could be a central narrator or the protagonist. The first person narrator in other cases could be a peripheral narrator or one of the minor characters. In either of the two first person narrator point of view cases, objectivity is palpably absent. The first person narrator point of view is one of subjectivity, not of objectivity. In the unusual cases of the second person narrator point of view, the reader is not just a reader but is also a willing participant or character in the narrative. The author has involved the reader in the story. It is the author who speaks and is ipso facto the narrator of the story. The second person narrator point of view is also subjective. Junot Diaz uses the second person narrator point of view. Finally, the third person narrator point of view is the most pervasively used in fiction. In the third person narrator point of view, it is the author who speaks to the reader. The third person narrator point of view like the second person narrator point of view has the author as the narrator. However, the third person narrator point of view unlike the second person narrator point of view does not involve the reader as an interactive character in the story. In the third person narrator point of view, the story is addressed to the reader. The third person narrator point of view can be either objective or subjective. This third person narrator point of view is of three kinds. The third person narrator point of view can be omniscient or all knowing, limited omniscient or partially knowing, and finally the completely objective point of view. In the third person omniscient the author knows about the thoughts and feelings of all characters, understands all events, incidents and phenomenon. It is entirely the author’s subjective point of view or perspective here. In the limited omniscient the author delves into the mind of only one of the characters. The author understands the thoughts, feelings and the actions of only one of the characters. The author doesn’t know about the other characters’ thoughts or actions. The author is also in the dark about what events will take place and why it will take place. This limited omniscient point of view is thus partially objective and partially subjective. In the third person objective narrator point of view, the author is a non-subjective, unprejudiced observer of facts, events and incidents. The author is clueless about the motivations behind the acts of his or her characters or what the proclivities of the characters are. This third person objective narrator point of view is as the name suggests a thoroughly objective point of view. Orientation is a short story written by Daniel Orozco. In this bizarre story, the narration is in the first person narrator point of view. The narrator is the newcomer’s lord and master. The narrator is the new entrant’s boss who is extremely cut and dried. He demands absolute loyalty and obedience from his subordinates including the latest recruit. The boss is an officious and pompous person who seems to micromanage everyone under him. The boss brooks no dissent from anyone. He seems to know the details of the private lives of everyone in the office including gory details. The boss is also aware of the idiosyncrasies and peccadilloes of the office staff as well. He is also cognizant of the strengths of his employees. It is in this respect that the boss, who is the narrator switches effortlessly back and forth from the first person point of view to the third person narrator omniscient point of view. The boss is a gossipy person who is full of himself and instructs new office staff with a mixture of loquacity and bluster. The boss is nevertheless a peripheral narrator. The protagonist is the anonymous and obscure new entrant. The story is addressed to the reader. The point of view is subjective in the story. The plot of the story is extremely rambling and is essentially a monologue. The story explores interesting themes though. The story is a commentary on corporate culture. It ridicules the mechanistic, dehumanized ethos of the office life. It mocks and satirizes bureaucracy including corporate bureaucracy. It lampoons the litany of rules and regulations that stifle the creative spark of employees in the workplace. Office culture reduces professional staff to mere cogs in the wheel and devalues the intrinsic worth of individuals. The narrator mercilessly skewers this idea. This story is an excoriating critique of the nine to five workday norm of the bureaucratic workplace. The story also hints that the office is a fecund place for social gossip. The narrator also reveals that the workplace is a natural breeding ground for malicious rumors. Romance is not unknown in the office according to the narrator. Thus we see that the narrator provides plenty of dramatic irony. The narrator is an unreliable narrator. Nevertheless, the narrator ultimately says that despite knowing the severe drawbacks of employees, the company values employees and keeps them employed only on the basis of their professional output. Who’s Irish is a marvelous short story written by the Chinese American writer Gish Jen. It is a story told in the first person narrator point of view. The narrator is an old, curmudgeonly Chinese woman who is also a grandmother. The narrator or the cantankerous Chinese woman is the protagonist in the story. The narrator is the first person central narrator. The narrator’s point of view is quintessentially subjective in nature. The antagonist in the story is the adorable, impish and independent-minded granddaughter Sophie who is half-Chinese American and half-Irish American. Sophie’s Chinese American mother is the primary breadwinner of the family. She is a successful person. Sophie’s Irish American father is a bit of a wastrel but a good person. Sophie’s Irish American uncles are indolent individuals who are also free riders like her father. Sophie’s grandmother is a woman of strong convictions and she disparages these idle Irish Americans. Sophie’s grandmother makes no bones about expressing her complete contempt for her son-in-law and his slothful and unemployed brothers. Sophie’s grandmother’s outlook towards life is Eastern and she believes that the husband should be the primary earner of income in a household. She also believes that in old age, children should look after parents. Instead, the grandmother aids her daughter Natalie by babysitting Sophie. She feels that the young should be reverential and submissive towards the old. She has a wee bit of xenophobia and plenty of prejudice towards the Irish. In the end, it is ironical when the grandmother is turned out of the house by her daughter and son-in-law for corporally chastising Sophie, she finds solace and refuge in Bess’s house. Bess is an Irish American and her son-in-law’s mother. The old Chinese lady who scorned the Irish has finally found a home away from home in an Irish household. Her Irish friend is a compassionate woman who treats Sophie’s grandmother as a fellow Irish. The story explores the theme of the generation gap. It shows how generational differences in outlook create communication constraints and communication gaps. Generation gaps result in misunderstandings and conflicts. Generation gap and the consequent communication gap are unbridgeable chasms. The story also explores cultural gaps and barriers. The Orient and the Occident are in some ways as different as chalk and cheese. Eastern and Western ways of living can sometimes be diametrically opposite especially with notions of patriarchy, liberalism, child rearing, child abuse, independence and freedom enjoyed by the young, and corporal punishment. It also shows how unsuited the joint family is to modern living. Finally, it shows that cultural gaps are not as wide as generational gaps and people of the same age group bond together with love and friendship. It shows that compassion, love and friendship triumph over identities like nation, race and culture. Gusev is a superb short story. Gusev is written by the towering Russian short story teller, playwright, essayist and novelist namely Anton Chekhov. Chekhov wrote this story in the 1890s after his trip to Sakhalin Island in Siberia. Chekhov saw the ignominiously inhuman and terrifyingly brutal conditions that imprisoned people were subjected there. Chekhov’s plot in Gusev is straightforward. The plot is a conversation between two conscripted civilians returning to Russia from the Far East after they have caught tuberculosis. These two civilians – one a peasant and the other an intellectual – have contracted tuberculosis after being exposed to inhospitable and unhygienic conditions while doing their soldierly duties in the Far East. They are being shipped back to their home along with other ill soldiers, who are on their last legs. They have been herded like cattle and dumped in the infirmary of the ship. Gusev, a peasant bereft of intellect and Pavel, an atheist intellectual and a social critic, are two people engaged in an unpleasant conversation about different facets of society in Tsarist Russia. They both soon kick the bucket. Pavel enters the slumber room first and is soon followed by Gusev. Their bodies are then unsentimentally dumped into the ocean. Gusev’s body becomes food for the shark. Ultimately, Gusev’s and in general the insignificance of human beings is borne out by the breathtaking beauty of the sky and the endless expanse of the ocean. The story is told in the third person narrator point of view. It is not an objective narration. The author has adopted the third person omniscient narrator point of view. The author Anton Chekhov is the narrator. He knows about the thoughts, aspirations, worldviews, dreams and motivations of everyone in the story. Chekhov knows everything about the places, events, incidents, economic conditions, intellectual climate, social milieu, political environment and changes that are coursing through Russia. This is a subjective point of view. Gusev, a straitlaced and unpretentious peasant is the protagonist in the story. The insufferable intellectual and the cranky critic Pavel is the arrogant antagonist who deprecates Gusev. The views of these two characters on Russian society, politics, military and punitive action are diametrically opposite. Chekhov uses a blend of naturalism, imagism, symbolism and realism to create this scintillating sensory prose work. Chekhov utilizes economy of language and fantastic imagery to convey ideas in this piece of fiction. The naturalism of the story is provided by the hues of colors in the sky and the assortment of cloud formations in the sky. The vivid description of the ocean and its inhabitants also fits the genre of naturalism. The unsanitary and insalubrious conditions of the sick ward of the ship mirror the unhygienic conditions of ships carrying terminally ill soldiers in Tsarist Russia. Symbols like dark smoke and the head of an eyeless bull convey the fogginess of Gusev’s thoughts and also his primal nature. When Gusev sees the image of his niece sticking her foot out in the cold, it implies that he is worried that his niece might be susceptible to frostbite. The symbol of caged canaries singing is juxtaposed along with Pavel’s ranting and ravings. Both emphasise the futility of effort whether trapped in a cage or illness. Gusev, in his delirium, displays stream of consciousness. Gusev is a simpleton who is incapable of thinking critically. He cannot comprehend abstract ideas. He only thinks of his family and village. He is parochial and narrow-minded. His patriotism has made him hostile towards foreigners. His animosity and xenophobia is evident when he needlessly assaults Chinese men. He has irrational impulses and sudden bouts of anger. In Freudian psychology, his unconscious mind dominates him. His ego is still in a fledgling state. He kowtows before authority and feels his commanding officer has the right to punish him. Gusev is dominated by his primal mind. Nonetheless, his ignorance and inability to comprehend critically has contributed to his mirth. Gusev, in a microcosm, represented the impoverished Russian peasantry who humbly accepted their pathetic position in the stratified society of imperial and reactionary Russia. For centuries, these innocuous and ignorant masses were oppressed and exploited by the venal and decadent rulers of Russia. Pavel, on the other hand is a peevish person. He is a pompous intellectual who rails against the injustices and evils in Russian society. He thinks critically and analyzes the political, social, economic and religious environment of Russia with remarkable clarity. Pavel represents the educated intellectuals who were vociferously advocating reforms in Russia. It is unclear whether Pavel wanted gradual reforms or dramatic reforms. It is in the contrast between Gusev and Pavel that Chekhov has talked about the two classes in Russian society; one class stuck in an antediluvian mindset and the other class who was in the throes of agitation and trying to bring in reforms. Gusev is a pacifist in the mold of Tolstoy and wants to preserve the status quo. Pavel, on the other hand, is a gadfly and is ready to stir discontent. Pavel probably can identify himself with the ideals harbored by the members of the Russian Social Democrats. Chekhov, despite being a liberal, wanted incremental and gradual reform of society. Chekhov was not a radical reformer. Chekhov abstained from revolutionary activities and refrained from violence as a means to attain upward mobility for the masses. Chekhov was a pacifist and was a great admirer of Tolstoy. Chekhov sympathized more with Gusev rather than identifying himself with Pavel. That seems to be the reason that the story is titled Gusev and not Pavel.

Review 8

Rajeet Guha New School Homework 8 Writers have a compelling duty to generate a world that seduces the reader and keeps him spellbound through intricate plots that entail conflicts, crises and resolution according to Nancy Huddleston Packer in Burroway’s classic textbook Writing Fiction: A Guide to Narrative Craft. For Burroway and other writers like Elizabeth Bowen and Jerome Stern who take a scientific approach to writing, setting (place) and atmosphere is indispensable for generating a sustained interest in the readers. Giving short shrift to the atmosphere of the place and ignoring the where and when the plot is in motion, can bewilder readers and bore them to death. Like the rhythm of prose must be in sync with intention, place must be in harmony with the denouement. Setting anchors the story to a particular place and is one of the elements of the story. Setting should be seamlessly woven into the symbolic features of the story and also mirror the mixed moods and nuanced facets of the dramatis personae. Character does not come out of thin air. Character itself is inextricably interlinked to plot, setting and the ambience immanent in that setting. In order to find the rationale behind a character’s momentous actions, it will be imperative to research not only how old the character is along with his or her race and religion but undeniably also the culture and ambience of the place. Sometimes the place may be unwholesome and insalubrious to the protagonist and can often result in friction and discord in the story. In order to ground the setting of the story in reality in the minds of the reader so that he can visualize it crystal clear, the writer’s memory, which is a storehouse of details and knowledge, is used time and again. A lucid and vivid setting in the minds of the reader can also be created through primary research or experiment where the writer goes and lives in those areas and immerses himself in the culture of the place and experiences life there like an anthropologist. Each place or setting has its unique characteristics like geographical demarcations, weather, soil, traditions, culture, history, folklore, music and dance, food, economic development, racial relations and tensions, religious denominations, morality, rationality, terrain and ecology. It is in such a milieu that every character interacts with others and ultimately changes and makes others change as well. Place or setting is seldom simple. Rather it is very complex and often has contradictory or antagonistic forces competing against each other. There is a perennial struggle between the past and the present, the old and the new, the static and the dynamic and finally there is a disruption. Ultimately, a new equilibrium comes to the forefront. Like setting, place or space, there is another vital element in fiction. This vital element in literature is none other than time. Time is an intrinsic and inseparable aspect in literature. Time is a paradigm used in literature to talk about the external world. Nonetheless, literature is primarily focused on content time that is the time period in which the story is written. At times, the duration of time in the plot is compressed while on other occasions it is expanded. It is the writer’s volition to introduce either a condensed time frame or a magnified time. Time is dealt with in literature using the tools of summary and scene. Summary encapsulates a prolonged period of time. A scene in contrast elaborates a small frame in a story. Summary is a utilitarian and critical instrument used by writers to convey knowledge, enlighten the readers about the background of the person in question, and understand the prime movers of certain events and the actions committed, change the pace of the story, rewind or fast forward or transition from one mood or emotion to another without any jagged edges and finally also give an account of the evolution of a relationship encompassing its birth, growth, maturity, decline, decay and end. Flashback and slow motion are devices used both in summary and scene to modify the pace of the story and signal changes in emotions of characters. In literature, a summary must be replete with specific and definite details to pique the curiosity of the reader. A lucid and vibrant summary holds forth the attention of the reader. A vapid and generic summary that goes through the motions puts off the reader. A summary is the base or foundation of the story. It is on this sound and solid base that scenes are used to propel the story forward. Scenes are the staple of stories. Scenes portray the story in all its richness. Scene is the medium to immerse the reader into the fluid world of stories with its unexpected twists and turns. A scene witnesses two people or more engaged in dialogue and action. Within a story, each scene has a climax of its own. Scene creates sensory prose. A scene where there is a climax is not about any moment in time but is the moment in time. The climax or crisis in a scene must be predated by a conflict or nouement. Every climax in turn is succeeded by an anticlimax and finally a resolution. A story can have a single scene and a stellar example of this is William Carlos Williams’ superb story titled ‘The Use of Force’. But it must be kept in mind that a lone summary cannot tell a story. Amateur writers are susceptible to summarizing stories. These make stillborn stories. Novices must not fall into the bait of putting momentous events in a nutshell. A consequence of this will be sterile stories as summaries create a barrier or wall between the reader and the story. Instead, new writers must try to capture momentous moments in their stories through well-crafted dialogue and febrile action that makes a lasting imprint in the minds of readers. A scene is like a magic carpet that takes the reader into the setting and action of the plot in a split second. Sapid scenes in literature make memorable memories in humans that they often later on recall years later with fondness and a wee bit of nostalgia. Scenes are summary often alternated and have their distinct purposes. The two must effortlessly blend into the story. They must also complement each other and add layers of complexity to the story. The English Pupil is a short story by Andrea Barrett. It is told by the narrator in the third person point of view. The setting is Uppsala in Sweden and the tale is set in the latter part of the eighteenth century. The story chronicles the last days of the Swedish natural historian and scientist Carl Linnaeus who is in the depressing and dark winter of his illustrious life. It is pertinent that the story is set in the frighteningly dark and dreary winter of Scandinavia. It is ironic that Linnaeus who was an intellectual giant with a enviable and unforgettable memory is now having severe problems in cognition and memory. Linnaeus is suffering possibly from dementia and Alzheimer’s disease. He is hallucinating and has not been able to come to grips with his drastic deterioration in physical and mental health. He is nostalgic about his past glory. He has also a lot of regret and guilt, as he feels responsible for the deaths of his students or ‘apostles’ whom he sent out on expeditions. He imagines seeing their ghosts. It is a tragic story that shows that even intellectual giants turn into dwarfs. Wickedness is set in the American Midwest. It is a story by Ron Hansen. It talks about the destructiveness of nature; how nature in its wrath can wreak havoc over the lives of humans and uproot everyone’s existence. Even manmade materials like buildings, houses and schools are crushed. Wickedness actually portrays the blizzard of the 1880s that ravaged the MidWest. Here the blizzard typifies wickedness at its peak. The blizzard here personifies Satan or the Devil. The Brobdingnagian blizzard demonstrates its devilish deeds by deracinating existence and eviscerating life. Not even pious or good people are spared. The innocuous ones and the not so innocuous ones are devoured alike by the Devil. Wickedness ultimately demonstrates the fragility of human existence. Love and Hydrogen is written by Jim Shepard. It is a titanic tragedy. It is written in the third person. This is a Greek tragedy, as the reader already knows the outcome. It is about the fatal flight of the famed airship Hindenburg in May 1937. The Hindenburg was a German airship that exploded in New Jersey. Several of its crewmembers and passengers died in this hydrogen filled airship. The Hindenburg was a treasured airship of Adolf Hitler’s Nazi Party. The captain of the airship was a Nazi through and through. The Nazis were insufferable racists who persecuted vulnerable groups. One of the groups that they targeted were homosexuals. Two of the crewmembers were homosexual men who had a steamy relationship with one another. Ultimately they were caught which signaled the end of their careers. The writer wants to make the point that despite discrimination being rampant in Nazi Germany there were gays who indulged in lovemaking, as humans are humans. Throughout history in all parts of the world there have been homosexuals. The story explores a love triangle as one of the homosexual men also has flirtatious relations with a girl and the other homosexual man is consumed by jealousy. It is this jealousy that leads to the jealous guy’s loss of equanimity and makes him commit a blunder that plays a part in the explosion. The story is in the genre of historical fiction. Raymond Carver wrote succinct stories. His lucid and vivid prose was conspicuous for its minimalistic style. His stories are very realistic. A serious talk is written in the third person point of view. It discusses a jealous and possessive ex-husband who cannot come to terms with the fact that he has lost his wife, his children and his home. His heart burns after he learns that his wife is having an affair with another man. Loss of home and family, jealousy, possessiveness, control and unable to accept the inevitable are some of the main themes in the story by Carver. The Swimmer is a surreal story written by John Cheever. This short story is written in the third person point of view. The protagonist of the story is a man called Neddy. He lives in a wealthy suburb of New York. He lives an opulent lifestyle and is a socialite in high society. The story on the surface is about Neddy taking a swim through all pools in the county before reaching his house after an arduous and marathon swim. But in Neddy’s journey we find out that Neddy is actually traveling through time. There is flashback employed here subtly. Neddy was earlier rich but his fortunes have taken a hit. He is now broke and tries to borrow money from people. He is divorced after his wife learns of his extramarital affair. His wife has taken the kids with her. His mistress has broken up with him and treats him with contempt. Those who earlier were unctuous towards him look at him with scorn. He doesn’t have any genuine friends. There are genuine friendships in affluent suburbs. There is only the veneer of bonding and friendship. The story goes from summer to autumn. This signifies that Neddy is in the twilight of his life. His vitality is sapped and he will soon pass away. Adultery, divorce, impermanence of wealth and status, shallow acquaintances masquerading as frienships, depression and ultimately death are the themes in this story. Mrs. Dutta writes a letter is a short story. It is written by Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni. It was written in 1998 and published first in the Atlantic Monthly. It is a story told by the narrator/writer in the third person point of view. The story is set in San Francisco in California in the 1990s. San Francisco Bay Area is a place where many South Asians including people from India reside. Many Indian Americans flood Silicon Valley, which is the information technology hub of America. Sagar Dutta is one such character in the story. He has his wife Shyamoli and kids. His wife works too. He and his family have embraced the American way of living with their love of soap operas, sitcoms, talk shows, etc. Mrs. Dutta, the protagonist and Sagar’s mother, has recently relocated to America after suffering from crippling pneumonia in India, where she lived alone for three years after the demise of her husband. She bid farewell to her relatives and buddies in India. She even bid adieu to her bosom buddy Mrs. Basu. But after almost three months of living in the San Francisco Bay Area she has become totally disillusioned with American customs and culture. She belongs to a different generation and finds the culture in America diametrically opposite that of India and certainly unpalatable. She is also appalled by the perceived disrespect shown to her by her independent minded daughter in law and garrulous grandchildren. She wrongly feels that they are being irreverent towards her. In flashback she recounts how diffident Shyamoli was as a new bride. She recalls fond memories of Sagar’s childhood and also recalls her terrifying relationship with her mother-in-law. She genuflected before her mother-in-law as is the custom in the Orient contrasted to the Occident. She was servile to her husband and relegated her own joys to the backburner. She comes back to the present day and thinks of Shyamoli as a conceited daughter-in-law and a cocky wife who has no qualms of conscience about making her husband do household chores. Mrs. Dutta feels America is an individualistic society whereas India is community oriented. People in America are aloof while people in India are friendly according to her perspective. She is completely disenchanted with America. She feels that she has the psyche of an Indian while Sagar and his family have become true blue Americans. Finally she writes back a letter to her friend Mrs. Basu requesting her to rent her downstairs flat to her when she comes back to India soon.

Review 7

Rajeet Guha New School Homework 7 In her book, Writing Fiction: A Guide to Narrative Craft, Janet Burroway has devoted two chapters to characterization or the building of character in fiction. Characterization is aided by two methods namely the direct method and the indirect method. In her initial chapter on characterization she has gone at length to build character using the four direct methods of character presentation; appearance, action, dialogue and thought. The first two direct methods of appearance and action transmit robustly to readers the views or the opinions about the dramatis personae. The next two direct methods of dialogue and thought communicate, expose and lay bare the identities and the true nature of the dramatis personae. Characters could be from real life or mere flights of fantasy but must be exciting, credible, riveting and pique our curiosity. This is true of all living characters whether in human form or in some other form. Sometimes human personality traits are thrust upon nonhumans. This is in line with creating compelling fiction as long as it is not overdone. Excessive use of the characteristics of humans applied to those in the nonhuman, natural world will result in the problem that John Ruskin named the pathetic fallacy. Anne Lamott has said that characters in fiction often mirror the readers themselves either partially or wholly. Readers have affinity to some characters as they see themselves in that person. Unsavory characters repulse readers as they see those that they detest and despise in them. Sometimes, the character’s personality is like the God Janus or two-faced or duplicitous and might be appealing to a few readers. On other occasions, a genuine character may have to suffer a tumultuous tug of war in his mind about which course of action to choose between two alternatives. This will often reverberate and echo with the readers as they too are posed with dilemmas in their daily lives just like the fictional characters are. Certain virtues in characters might seem heartening to readers while vices in the same characters might be disheartening. These four direct methods of representing and building characters metamorphose abstract ideas into living beings with specific and unique features that readers can visualize in their minds. Appearance, action, dialogue and thought reveal characters to the readers. The short story Gryphon has been written by Charles Baxter. Baxter is an illustrious writer. His story is situated in Five Oaks, Michigan in the Midwest. On the surface the story is about a drab, obscure place called Five Oaks in the countryside. Tommy is a fourth grader who lives with his baby brother and parents in Five Oaks. His parents are not distinguished and neither are the other residents. Tommy goes to a nondescript school where the teaching is insipid, monotonous and mostly mechanical and rote. Most of the teachers like Mr. Hibler are vapid and lack the creative spark. Mr. Hibler is ill for a few days and there is a new substitute teacher called Miss Ferenczi. This new teacher seems unreal. She substitutes fiction for facts. Even the students are astounded by the teacher’s poor grasp over facts and concepts. Even her appearance, demeanor, hairdo and dressing up are bizarre. She has lines on her face. In this aspect Tommy, the narrator who in flashback recalls this female teacher in his fourth grade, finds her similar to the fictional Disney character Pinocchio. Miss Ferenczi, the strange female teacher who appears partially human and partially nonhuman in her weird personality, is the protagonist of the short story Gryphon. Like Pinocchio, she seems to be nonhuman and also like Pinocchio she is an inveterate liar. She concocts facts and presents them to the perplexed and incredulous class who despite doubting her statements is entranced by her talk and method of teaching. The students including Tommy, the first person narrator, thinks of her as otherworldly and appreciates her fantastic tales. Some students like Tommy think there might be a kernel of truth in her statements but even others who realize she is a charlatan, a pseudo teacher and a fabulist are captivated by her stories about exotic places, dubious lineage and ultimately mythical and imaginary creatures like the Gryphon. The Gryphon is a creature that is only the product of legend and folklore. It is a mythological hybrid creature that has the body and legs of a lion while possessing the head and wings of an eagle. Miss Frenczi is also a slippery character that seems to be partially female and partially mythical in her personality attributes. She also has a monstrous side when she predicts with her Tarot Cards that one of her students is doomed to die. This monstrous aspect also lends her a resemblance to the Gryphon. This female teacher lacks substance and depth but makes up for it by style and charisma. Not only is she a substitute teacher but she also substitutes fiction in place of fact. Finally, looking on the positive side this exotic and outlandish teacher is sapid unlike the vapid teachers who lack the spark of creativity. This female teacher can spin yarns. She lets her imagination run riot and offers a creative mode of teaching as opposed to the humdrum and insipid styles of teaching that are a staple of the school. She offers alternative ways of thinking to students who are accustomed to thinking in conventional ways. For the first time students to learn to see things from another angle, question their established beliefs and are initiated to think out of the box. They learn that most facts are real while there is only a thin line separating other facts from fiction. Every tongue shall confess is a short story written by Z Z Packer in the third person. Packer is a preternatural writer. She is an African American writer who feels strongly about women’s issues. She is a feminist. She is a detractor of organized religion including Christianity. She thinks Christianity in all its variants including Evangelicalism is an instrument of patriarchy. She thinks of religion essentially as a male social construct intended to subjugate women, relegate them to a secondary and domestic role, make women subservient to men and impede the progress of women. She views religion in a negative light and she says evangelical Christianity in Black Churches also betray the same prejudices, hypocrisies, abuses, perversions and depravities that pervade White Churches. Males of all races and religions coerce women and compel them to follow their diktats. Religion in her opinion is an inflexible institution that is dogmatic and hypocritical. The office bearers of organized religion are venal and vile. Organized religion is the universal church of males, for males and by males. Religion offers no succor or liberation to women who have been fettered to its yoke. The story also shows that contrary to the hypocritical incumbents of religious offices who stifle the progress of their female counterparts; sometimes, secular men who are atheists are the real progressives. Rock Springs is a short story written by Richard Ford. Richard Ford is a minimalist like Hemingway. Like Hemingway, his terse prose is stylistic and written always in the genre of realism. In fact, his subgenre is dirty realism. Along with Raymond Carver, he is one of its eminent exponents. Ford, in his stories portrays the subsumed sections of society or the submerged population. Ford describes the lives of petty thieves, delinquents, divorcees, dysfunctional families, failed marriages, guilt-racked individuals, single mothers or fathers, unemployed, marginalized people, often the lower classes struggling to make ends meet. Ford is a chronicler of the American West and shatters the myth and romance associated with it. In pared down prose Ford reveals the unvarnished truth and the harsh realities of life that accompany those who live in the West. There are no halcyon days and opulence in the barren and dusty landscape but it is instead a rough environment where there are characters skimming the surface of the law and trying to eke out a living in an environment that is as tough as nails.

New School 6

Rajeet Guha New School Homework 6 Ursula K. Le Guin is a world-class writer. She writes mostly in the genre of science fiction. Some time ago, she wrote a piece on literary criticism. This invaluable pearl in the star-studded jewelry of literary criticism is titled ‘Some thoughts on narrative.’ ‘Some thoughts on narrative’ is a short essay on literary criticism that weaves together the different strands of philosophy, psychology, physics and science fiction into a terse and beautiful essay on literary criticism. This essay has been taken from her book ‘Dancing at the edge of the world: Words, Women, Places.’ This book, comprises nonfiction essays, was written in 1989. Some thoughts on narrative is an essay that is exclusively concerned with literature. Le Guin talks about literary narrative in her piece. She says that in literary theory, narrative is a contentious subject. Narrative is related to language used in literature and this often sparks lively and animated debates between philosophers of different schools of thought like phenomenalism, formalism, structuralism, post-structuralism and deconstruction. Barring the literary theorists and other intellectuals, the general public has also shown a flicker of interest in the topic of narrative. She endeavors to know why raconteurs like her tell tales and also what it is about her stories that pique the interest of readers and listeners alike. She ponders on the definition of a story after conceding that she cannot precisely say what it is. According to her, neither literary theorists nor linguists have been able to come to terms with what a story is. All psychologists barring one have come up croppers when posed the problem of defining narratives. A psychologist named Simon Lesser describes narrative as a psychic process. As a starting point she turns to the classical wisdom of Aristotle in defining a narrative. According to Aristotle, narrative is synonymous with plot. A narrative or plot intrinsically has a beginning, middle and an end. Incidents are organized in a linear direction, time and space in a narrative. Causality is always covertly stated in a narrative according to Aristotle. According to the Greek polymath Aristotle, causality in any dramatic or epic play is always subtly embedded in the framework of time. According to Le Guin, narrative involves networking of events in time through space that can be either in an open or closed pattern; linear, spiral or recursive pattern. Narrative is a temporal and spatial voyage that bears witness to plenty of interconnected events and incidents. Narrative is the meat and potatoes of the story. Narrative usually eschews the present tense except in cases of scientific generalizations, anthropological and archaeological research, and investigative journalism. Narratives are inherently grounded in the past tense as a point of reference. This mooring in the past allows narratives to be told freely, smoothly and with vigor. In science, time is reversible but in literature it is the opposite. Equations, subatomic particles, cells and genes are unaffected by direction. In literature, direction is crucial. Time is irreversible in literature. A sentence in English can be read from left to right but not the other way around. In Hebrew, it is read from right to left but not the opposite. Equations in physics, mathematics or chemistry have the same meaning when read from left to right or right to left. In literature, stories told from an arbitrary past, imply that things will change with the passage of time, there are alternative scenarios and there is a causal link between two or more events; connection established between incidents. In the following paragraphs, Le Guin meshes the concepts of psychology and philosophy in her priceless piece of literary criticism. Narrative, according to Le Guin, is an escape mechanism from the trials and tribulations experienced by humans in their lives. It is a psychological defense mechanism employed by humans to escape their existential crises. It is a safety valve to let out or vent out the frustrations and struggles immanent in the daily lives of homo sapiens. In addition to the negative and troubling aspects of life, the milestones, developmental phases and positive aspects of life that is essentially the human condition is charted out in narratives or stories by humans. Narrative is a pivotal function of language. It is a basic task performed by any ordinary person. Learning to speak in any language is the first step in storytelling. Preverbal and nonverbal mental operations are outside the realm of the conscious mind, dominated by Freud’s ego or sense of rationality and reality. These preverbal and nonverbal mental operations cannot be articulated normally while conscious except through Freudian slips. Preverbal and nonverbal mental operations exist only in the unconscious mind. These consist of primal desires (Freud’s Id) and morally conscientious thought (Freud’s Superego). It is only in dreams that that these preverbal and nonverbal mental operations are realized or actualized, and only after analyzing these irrational mental thoughts and activities appearing in dreams can the symbolic or literal meaning of these dreams be clarified or made sense of. Most of our thoughts, impressions, reactions, fears, desires, aspirations and goals lie in our unconscious mind, something that is inaccessible to our conscious mind when we are awake or engaged in mundane tasks. These thoughts, impressions, reactions, fears, desires, aspirations, etc. are our responses to our past experiences and memories and also to our daily current experiences, encounters, perceptions, attitudes, etc. This repository of thoughts, desires and wishes in the unconscious is repressed in our mind. It is played out or manifested only in dreams. An accurate analysis and interpretation of dreams is not possible. It is through the falsification of dreams or distorting dreams that they can fit into a rational narrative. Our narratives, like dreams, are not just an objective reflection of what we experience and perceive in life but also a subjective and distorted refraction of our experiences through the prism of our worldview. Our narratives are an amalgam of the objective and the subjective, reality and fantasy, rationality and irrationality, fact and fiction and finally the known and the unknown. They tend to reflect our values, ideas, ideals, culture and reason as well as those whose are different from ours. ‘The Use of Force’ is a short story written by William Carlos Williams. Williams was an American poet, short story writer, memoirist and physician from Bergen in New Jersey. This short story is reflective of his experiences as a physician. He was a pediatrician. The story is written in a concise and crisp style of language akin to that of Ernest Hemingway. Williams’ economy of words is conspicuous. The story is in the genre of realism. The plot has been stripped down to the bare essentials. It is essentially that of a rural doctor in New Jersey who is well educated but lacks the polish and sophistication associated with urban doctors. The pediatrician treats patients, mostly children, who come from poor, ill-educated families. Mathilda Olson is one such child who is suffering from high fever from a few days. Her parents are worried to death and solicit the services of a physician. The girl has told her gullible and poorly educated parents that she doesn’t have a sore throat. But the physician knows children often try to conceal their illnesses and thinks Mathilda is lying. The physician feels that the child is suffering from diphtheria and wants to examine her throat. The child is stubborn and intractable. She resists the physician aggressively and even attacks him unsuccessfully on more than one occasion. Nonetheless, the physician is compassionate towards the child and is determined to save the child from a life threatening illness. The physician is fond of the child and feels that he must do his duty even if that means forcefully opening the child’s mouth and taking a throat culture. The physician is also a bit annoyed with the child and has become dogged in his will to open the child’s throat and ultimately that is what he does. The choleric child cries after being defeated by the physician. The defiant child feels humiliated and thinks that her guarded secret has been laid bare. She feels that her privacy has been invaded and she has only impotent tears of rage and shame. She also feels abandoned by her parents who have sided with the doctor. The child however cannot comprehend the gravity of the situation and has nothing but contempt and loathing for the physician. The parents steel themselves and feel that the momentary pain and discomfort will lead to relief and cure in the long term. The doctor is a phlegmatic person who is ethical and feels that force is needed for the greater good of saving the child’s life. Ultimately when the child physically attacks the doctor, the doctor’s personality metamorphoses from phlegmatic to choleric. The doctor becomes unreasonable for a brief while and acts in a headstrong manner and pries open the child’s mouth with a metallic spoon. The doctor also acts like the petulant child he is treating for a brief while. Later on, after his diagnosis of diphtheria is spot-on, he repents his peevish behavior and highhanded dealing of the situation. He feels sorrow and regret for the child and himself. As the story is told in the first person with the narrator/author as the protagonist, there is a brief aside where he says that in retrospect maybe he should have come back later to complete the diagnosis when reason would prevail over raw emotion. There is also we see a bit of metafiction here. Happy Endings is a short story by the Canadian intellectual and feminist writer Margaret Atwood. This short story is series of six short short stories or flash fiction that offers alternative scenarios with a different beginning and a distinct middle but the end is invariably the same. It is written from the third person point of view. The narrator is a third person omniscient narrator who knows everything about the characters. This short story is written in the metafictional style where the narrator constantly comments on the characters and events of the story. The narrator conveys her opinions in this short story. This is metafiction or fiction where she is continuously voicing her views on fiction. She is consistently saying what good fiction should be and what it should not be. This is fiction where she is writing about the aesthetics of fiction. This is in addition to being a short story, also a commentary on fiction. It is also an essay or piece of literary criticism or literary theory. Atwood has written this short story in a sarcastic or ironic vein. She is often narrating flash fiction playfully with plenty of tongue on her cheek. This metafictional narrative is a savage and scathing criticism of happy endings in short stories. In fact her title ‘Happy Endings’ is a satire on the genre of popular romantic fiction where conclusions always turn out to be happy or pleasant. Atwood subtly criticizes this genre where life is portrayed as a bed of roses or at the most with some struggle the ending is a fairy tale ending. Atwood poignantly shows that there are no tailor-made solutions in life. In fact, death is the only and ultimate certainty. Death is the eternal ending and the biggest truth in this uncertain life. She believes that fiction should depict reality. She also believes writers should focus on the beginning and middle of the story. She thinks that writers should religiously pay maximum importance to the middle part of the story. Characterization, setting and plot are important. Writers should focus on the interconnectedness of characters and events in the plot and implicitly show causality. The how and why of stories are to be given primacy of the what and what and what of stories. This short story is finally also an indictment of the stereotypical gender roles in society emanating from patriarchy. She thinks that society should be reformed in such a way that women should be able to break apart the manacles of bondage and genuflection to men and chart their own lives and careers according to their wishes and what benefits them. ‘Everything that rises must converge’ is a short story written by the marquee writer Flannery O’ Connor. It is a story written in the Southern Gothic genre. Flannery O’ Connor was a Southerner and this story like her other short stories is situated in the southern part of the United States or below the Mason-Dixon line. This story was published in her final anthology of short stories before she rested in peace at the tender age of thirty-nine. In this short story she brings a distinctive Southern flavor similar to what pervades her body of work. She brings together her mindset, her experiences, the viewpoint of her relatives and friends and in general Southern society and culture with its attitudes, mannerisms and biases. The story has been anchored to a period of American history in twentieth century where social upheavals and momentous changes were taking place at a breakneck pace. In this short story O’ Connor has portrayed the Zeitgeist in a society riven by deep-seated and deeply scarred divisions of race, class, religion, ideas, ideals and culture at a time in the 1960s when the scourge of segregation had been legally terminated and civil rights in the American South was in its embryonic state. Even though segregation had been ended in practice by law but in the psyche of the two races namely white and black segregation lurked insidiously at both the conscious and unconscious levels. Even though the original sin of slavery had been abolished about a century before, but its sinister shadow was still a menacing prospect that sometimes reared its ugly head. Segregation, the cursed child of slavery, was a specter that haunted and tormented the residents in the South during its ignominious and infamous reign and secondly also after its death. It would be apropos here to quote William Faulkner’s famous lines “The past is never dead. It’s not even past.” In Janet Burroway’s book one of the chapters is called ‘The Tower and the Net’. In this chapter Burroway harps on the structure of short stories and novels. She underlines the indispensable importance of structure in fictional writing. Structure should not be explicit in a story. Instead structure should be subtle and be seamlessly woven into the plot, setting, characterization and form of the story. In this chapter she elucidates the concepts of conflict, crisis, climax, anticlimax and resolution in the story or novel. Secondly she discusses in detail the arc of the story as its plot. Thirdly she discusses patterns of power prevalent in the story between the protagonist and the antagonist and other characters. She then talks about the connections or bonding between people holding diametrically opposite views like the protagonists and antagonists. She also talks about the disconnections or the disruptions between the competing characters. She says that a story or novel must ultimately have a dénouement, which must be the interplay of the connection and disconnection. The connection is similar to the net with strong linkages or attachments while the disconnections or conflicts are analogous to people trying to climb and reach the top of tower first. Also, these concepts of connection, disconnection and denouement or resolution in literary theory bear an uncanny resemblance to the concepts of thesis, antithesis and synthesis in political theory. Burroway also distinguishes between story and plot. The former is a litany of events jotted down in a linear temporal order. The latter is the ordered and organized arrangement of events with the purpose of exposing their salience in drama, theme and emotion. Burroway then says that the distinction between the story and the novel is one of length. A story is short whereas a novel is long. Every story can be made into a novel and vice versa. In the last section of reading as writers, Burroway says that writers should peruse the works of other writers with a keen and discerning eye for detail. Writers when reading should see the strong points of every work and either imitate or even steal them. At the same time, writers should not repeat the mistakes that they observe in others while reading.

New School 5

Rajeet Guha New School Homework 5 In Burroway’s book, there has been given salient points for penning down good fiction. The author says that the motive of the fiction writer is to reveal and not explicitly say. The reader should not be spoon-fed. The reader should be considered to be enlightened, observant, perceptive, intuitive, creative and rational in outlook. The reader should be thought of as able to interpret details and emotions in all its complexity. The writer should keep in mind that the reader has a nuanced understanding of issues and can discern subtlety. The detailed description of the environment or surroundings is the lifeblood of fictional writing. Description should be realistic and precise. When a work has the right mix or suitable proportion of naturalism and realism, the writer has succeeded in creating verisimilitude or the semblance or appearance of the objective truth. The writer has to muddy his hands, acutely observe and perceive nature and accurately and cogently lay out the landscape, flora and fauna, vegetation, dwellings, roads, rivers, bridges, forests, mountains, malls, people, factories, schools, churches, libraries, parks, museums, highways, oceans, ships, highways, airports, airplanes, buildings, monuments and the list could go on and on till the cows came home. A superior method of telling a story would be to evoke images, symbols, motifs and themes that resonate with the readers. Allegory, simile, metaphor and the whole gamut of terms that typify figures of speech should be abundantly employed. When delineating detail, it must be remembered that necessary details should never be left out of the lucid and vivid description. A lacuna in crucial description of details enervates and even emasculates the work. On the other hand, superfluous details should be excised wherever possible as a bloated novel or story is as aesthetically removed from the ideal form as Alaska is from Hawaii. The expunging of needless details from the narrative makes the piece of fiction taut and terse. The Nobel Laureate Ernest Hemingway, one of the transformative writers of prose fiction, was a tireless proponent of such an approach that culled superfluity. Hemingway’s approach was labeled the ‘Iceberg Effect’. Imagery mesmerizes the reader of fiction and makes reading the book akin to watching a movie or experiencing a dream. Everything in the book feels realistic and even elements of fantasy and the supernatural when juxtaposed with reality creates what the great poet Coleridge called the “suspension of disbelief”. The “suspension of disbelief” is what enchants the reader and transports him to another world where he starts living in his dream or illusory world transiently. The reader gets involved in the story as an active participant who identifies with the characters in the story and is passionately and emotionally attached to the characters in the story. Fiction tries to reproduce the emotional impact of experience. Words must be thoroughly transmuted to images. While writing fiction it is also incumbent upon the writer to remove filters while writing. The writer should never permit his observing consciousness to find its way in his writing. The writer should refrain from letting his preconceived notions, mindsets, biases, subjective opinions, thoughts, beliefs and judgments from entering his writing. The writer should be as objective as possible in his fiction just like modern journalists do and not allow his writing to be colored by his subjective judgment. The writer should try to elicit feelings and emotion in his audience but desist from evoking a surfeit of or excessive emotion. No work of fiction should be excessively sentimental or maudlin. Melodrama is generally neither appreciated nor held in high esteem by literary critics, who are the appraisers of quality fiction. The writer should endeavor to refrain from branding emotions as they are seldom exclusive; in fact the intermingling and intertwining of emotions is an intrinsic aspect of human nature. The writer should arouse the senses of the reader. He should sharpen the thoughts and feelings of the reader. The author should use sensory detail and create a clear, bright, sharp, graphic, lively and distinct image in the reader’s mind such that the reader can see in his mind’s eye, can hear in his mind’s ear, can smell in his mind’s nose, can taste in his mind’s tongue and can feel and touch in his mind’s skin as if the reader was participating in the story as events unfold. The writer should not leave any stone unturned in his quest to engender verisimilitude and produce perception in the reader’s mind. It is vital for a writer to portray the precise physical sensations experienced by fictional characters in order to foster a sensory memory in the reader that he can connect to. Fiction must contain ideas that imbue incredible importance to characters and events. While writing, writers must invariably think of and gestate about the past as they discuss emotions. This is considered good practice as the fogginess of emotional meaning gets cleared with the efflux of time and ultimately the cloudiness of emotions get illumined with the bright rays of reason and the sensibility of pellucid perception. It is advisable for writers not to ruminate about the present as emotions are rarely revealed in its completeness in the present. It is only in the future that the cobwebs of chaos and confusion in the present will be removed with the passage of edifying experience and the wisdom of time. Authors of fiction also have a duty to ensure that the readers are not indifferent to judging or evaluating fiction. Reading fiction must provoke readers to deliver judgment on the characters, themes, plot, symbols, essence and morals if any on the story. In fact, it would be best if readers have more than one judgment or interpretation of the story. A multiplicity of interpretations and analyses will lead to an interactive and engaging debate. Nonetheless, readers’ judgments or interpretations should correspond to acute and incisive perception by their sensory organs. The writer should leave certain things unsaid and should resist the temptation of passing judgments. It is also vital for the creator of fiction to write not only in a concrete but significant manner. The details in the story or novel must not only be explicit or overt in their description but must also covertly or implicitly insinuate meaning and value. The values, activities, lifestyles, ideas, attitudes and personalities of characters should be brought out covertly and with subtlety. Fiction is a medium for conveying ideas and consequently opening a Pandora’s box when inviting judgments or interpretations. It is ethical for a writer to transmit multiple ideas and suggest antithetical judgments to the critical readers and start an intellectual brouhaha. As the writer edits and sharpens his story, the import and weight of the story is underscored by the coruscating conspicuousness of realistic detail. While pursuing the creative task of producing fiction, it is absolutely essential to avoid a few pitfalls in fiction writing. Writers must never succumb to what John Ruskin terms as the ‘pathetic fallacy’. It is easy to elucidate pathetic fallacy; it is the ascribing of human emotions, thoughts, attitudes, opinions, feelings and mannerisms to nonhumans. Writers must consciously try to evade falling into the trap of the pathetic fallacy. It is also imperative to know that the writer has to curtail or curb his enthusiasm for intellectualizing or generalizing or making abstruse abstractions. Philosophical commentary should be as less as possible. There are also other guidelines for forging fictional pieces that stand the test of time. The active voice should be used overwhelmingly. The passive voice is to be used to only seldom to reveal the utter helplessness and the existential and emotional abyss of the characters. Active verbs should supplant linking verbs in writing fiction. Similarly general verbs should be substituted by specific verbs. Dialogues must not be embryonic but be fully matured and ripened. Dialogues should act as the arteries circulating blood in the body of fiction. The palpability of this conversational style should be as apparent in any work of fiction as the sun and moon are to the eyes of the living. In order to give a dream-like quality to fiction, it goes without saying that the mechanics of writing must be mastered to perfection. Punctuation, grammar, spelling and paragraphing must be known like the back of one’s hand. Finally, it must be mentioned that the rhythm in prose is paramount in enchanting the reader. Cadence, tone, tempo and meaning all play their desired parts in crafting a piece of fiction. The variety in sentence lengths and rhythms helps to glue the attention of the readers. Similar lists of items create rhythmic thread. Variations and pauses in lists underpin emotional about-turns and moments of crises. A dramatic change in prose rhythm signals an epiphany, discovery or a cataclysmic change in mood. Such shifts also bolster polar opposites in characters, actions and attitudes. Simple clauses promote a fast-paced narrative; complex clauses promote a comatose and soporific narrative. Cadence should be synchronous with meaning of the work. All these will reinforce John Gardner’s clear, vivid, fluid dreamlike trance and Coleridge’s suspension of disbelief. The short story ‘Big Me’, by the award-winning writer Dan Chaon is told in the first person. The narrator is an unreliable narrator. The writer is also the protagonist of the story. The protagonist is not necessarily a hero though. He is an eccentric person with his share of idiosyncrasies. It would be in line to say that the protagonist is displaying abnormal or deviant tendencies in the story. There is frequent flashback and also flash-forward. Time-travel is also incorporated into the story. The abnormal behavior, perverted proclivities and the psychopathic activities apparently displayed by the protagonist do not in anyway personify the author Dan Chaon. Dan Chaon, on the other hand, is a well-functioning and productive member in society. Chaon has produced a magisterial metafictional work of art where it is almost impossible to sift out fact from fiction, reality from fantasy and finally the plausible from the implausible. Again, the story is set in a rural area with very low density of population. It talks about a lower-middle class family and its struggle to eke out a living in the rugged country. The economy is wallowing in muddy waters and finally the family’s business fails and it takes its toll on the family. The family unravels under economic duress and hard times follow the family members. The story talks about the protagonist’s strange experiences and feelings in childhood, boyhood and adulthood. The story explores themes of time-travel, life in rural areas, sibling rivalry, love, extrasensory perceptions, economic distress, family bonds and others. This short story, keeping in line with the short story genre, explores the unexplainable and also submerged or subsumed groups, the minnows, that Frank O’ Connor has articulated so well in his piece on literary criticism. Two other short stories were there in the readings. One was a short story called ‘The things they carried’ by the celebrated writer Tim O’ Brien. This short story is one of the stories in a collection of stories by Tim O’ Brien. The name of the book is also titled ‘The things they carried’. This collection of short stories graphically portrays the Vietnam War. The short story is told in the first person where the narrator is the protagonist. He is an unreliable narrator though. The brutality, madness, senselessness, amorality and the profligacy of carnage is poignantly captured in the story. O’ Brien’s story is a satire on war. It is an excoriating and savage indictment of the inhumanity and irrationality of war. It is a story told in metafictional form where the line between reality and fantasy is blurred. It is nearly impossible to make out which of the war stories are true and which are untrue. It deals with issues that are germane to war such as fear, guilt, confusion, loneliness, pain and love. The things they carried is used both literally and figuratively. It literally refers to the heavy arms and supplies the soldiers carried on their rucksacks. It figuratively refers to the long lasting, often perpetual emotional burdens or emotional baggage they carried with them during the war and forever after the conclusion of the war. The things they carried is used as a figure of speech to signify the emotional baggage comprising pain, guilt, fear, bewilderment, loneliness, despair and frustration. The other short story was a dark and disturbing one by Joyce Carol Oates. Oates’ story was titled ‘Where are you going, Where have you been’. An article in Life magazine about a serial killer committing gruesome murders inspired her to write this short story. This short story by Oates is in genre of gothic fiction and the subgenre of American Gothic. It is set in the southern part of the United States in the 1960s. The genesis of the title of the story can be traced to a melancholic song of the same name by the musical genius, poet and Nobel Literature Laureate Bob Dylan. This story is also grounded in metafiction where at times fact and fiction fuse together such that it is impossible to distinguish the two. The story is told in the third person but the narrator is unreliable. This story explores the themes of adolescent sexuality, female sexuality fettered by social mores, patriarchal society in which the freedom of females is drastically curtailed, sibling rivalry, undercurrent between a mother and daughter, a wide chasm between romantic notions and hard reality, superficiality of wealth and material culture, feminist and idealistic notions that are contrary to the avarice of materialism, vulnerability of people especially females in rural and suburban areas that are sparsely populated, fragility of friendship and the presence of predatory people in isolated areas, and finally the terrifying jump from immaturity to maturity.