A short story is a work of fiction that does not comprise the complexity and length of a novel or novella, but still tells a complete story with drawn-out characters and fully-developed plots. Often, since short stories do not get the chance to tell full stories with characters they get the time to develop, they have a much stronger focus on theme as a narrative device, telling stories with messages instead of using numerous plot points. To my mind, there are two different categories of short story: tales of understanding, and tales of terror. These are fairly vague definitions that cover a wide variety of short stories, but I believe that most short stories fall into either one of these two categories. In this essay, I will examine several short stories we have covered over the semester that fall into these two categories.
First, tales of understanding tend to be stories that lead to an overall education of some kind of social issue. Often, they are character studies which follow people who deal with various circumstances of their time or birthright. Many gender and race-oriented stories fall into this category, as they deal with people becoming educated or learning about someone else's circumstances, or living with their own.
"Cathedral" by Raymond Carver is one such example of a 'tale of understanding'; in this story, a man invites a blind friend of his wife's, Robert, over for dinner. While initially distrustful of the man, due to Robert's relationship with his wife, he starts to come to an understanding of what Robert goes through every day. Starting the story pitying the man for being inferior to him, he starts to understand the unique way in which Robert interprets and sees the world. This short story demonstrates the power of tolerance and the value of respecting those who are different from you; Robert is shown to 'see' in a different but equally valid way to the narrator.
"The Story of an Hour" by Kate Chopin is yet another tale of understanding, this time taking a decidedly feminist perspective for the time in which it is written. Mrs. Mallard learns that her husband is dead. After going through a gamut of emotions, becoming shocked and horrified at the death of the man, she starts to feel liberated. No longer does she have to be obligated to serve a man; she can strike out on her own as a woman. This story lets the audience understand the desires of women for agency and freedom, independent of having a husband.
Kate Chopin has another short story that falls into this category - "Desiree's Baby." In this story, the anxiety of potentially being a racial minority in the Deep South is explored, as Desiree's husband Armand fears she might be partly black due to the skin color of their child. Their investigation, and Armand's rage at the possibility of marrying a black woman, leads Desiree to leave him, resulting in the revelation that it is he who is, in fact, part black. This short story demonstrates the need to understand that this kind of anxiety regarding skin color is not productive; it is also another feminist work in which the women is liberated from a restrictive male presence.
"The Gilded Six-Bits" by Zora Neale Hurston deals with issues of both race and gender as well; a happily married African-American couple is threatened by the prospect of rich Slemmons living with them. The anxieties that stem from the threat of infidelity are made clear each time that Joe sees Slemmons closer and closer to Missie May, and the marriage begins to fall apart. This short story examines personal romantic relationships and their relationship to monetary wealth, showing the dangers of putting money before a marriage (sleeping with Slemmons to potentially get money from him).
Flannery O'Connor's short story "Everything That Rises Must Converge" is another tale of understanding, this one dealing more directly with race and the change in mindset between generations. The young man, Julian, is fine riding the bus with blacks, but his mother is extremely reticent to do so. The short story shows the lack of understanding they both have of the world, and of each other, demonstrating the importance of everyday human situations in shaping perspectives as Julian's own childish anger towards his mother makes him no better than she is.
The second kind of short story is the tale of terror - in these stories, there is a greater focus on visceral thrills. While characters and social themes are also important, there exists a bigger pressure to entertain or thrill, often through the use of horror elements. While tales of understanding are meant to inform, tales of terror are supposed to scare you and leave you in suspense. There are often also elements of race and gender commentary in these stories, however, as they are not exclusive to tales of understanding.
One tale of terror that also has elements of understanding is "The Yellow Wallpaper" by Charlotte Perkins Gilman. In this story, a woman being forced to endure a "rest cure" by her doctor husband starts to go insane from the lack of attention and the depression that she feels. As a result, she starts to see the yellow wallpaper around her room start to move, and she sees women hiding behind the wallpaper itself. She starts to completely lose herself to the point where she attacks her husband in order to escape. This tale is terrifying, with many elements of a psychological thriller, but it also touches on themes of feminist oppression and the backwards nature of 19th century medicine.
Edgar Allan Poe's "The Fall of the House of Usher" is a much more straightforward tale of terror; going to the House of Usher to help his friend Roderick with his various anxiety-related illnesses, the two start to slowly go insane as the darkness of the house and the isolation starts to get to them. As a storm brews in the house, the narrator reads a story to Roderick, triggering a supernatural phenomenon that leaves both Roderick and the House of Usher falling into oblivion. The tale is pure terror, touching on elements of guilt over wrongdoing (the murder of Roderick's sister) and the destructive nature of being a recluse.
Angela Carter's "The Werewolf" is another tale of terror that uses the tale of Red Riding Hood in a very visceral way to put the audience in the same state of dread as the protagonist. Creeping through the spooky woods to Grandmother's house, Red Riding Hood imagines what the devil would really be like, and fights off a wolf. Later, discovering that the wolf is actually her grandmother, the townspeople stone the werewolf to death. The tale is short, but intriguing, as the use of the twist ending shocks the reader into realizing that the grandmother and werewolf are the same person.
The tale of terror "The Guest" by Albert Camus is less focused on a visceral terror and presents more of an existential dread. Daru is isolated in the desert of Algeria, with no one around to help or save him. He feels alone and isolated from everyone else, except when he meets an Arab prisoner and Balducci, one of his friends. Daru is given the choice to hand in the prisoner to the government, or to let him go. Eventually, he simply hands the prisoner some money and gives him a choice to flee or turn himself in. The story ends with a threat of violence against Daru for defying the government - this is a more visceral terror, but the real horror comes from the emptiness of the desert and of the choices made by Daru and the prisoner. No matter what Daru did, he was going to be punished; either by doing the right thing or by himself for doing the wrong thing.
