American Short Stories

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UNIT ONE

Literature from the 1920s to the 1940s

IN ANOTHER COUNTRY (1927) ERNEST HEMINGWAY 21

HE (1930) KATHERINE ANNE PORTER 29

BABYLON REVISITED (1931) F. SCOTT FITZGERALD 43

THE FAR AND THE NEAR (1935) THOMAS WOLFE 67

SUCKER (1936) CARSON MCCULLERS 73

THE CHRYSANTHEMUMS (1937) JOHN STEINBECK 85

WHY I LIVE AT THE P.O. (1941) EUDORA WELTY 99

THE BLACK BALL (ca. 1941) RALPH ELLISON 115

THE SECRET LIFE OF WALTER MITTY (1942) JAMES THURBER 127

THE LOTTERY (1944) SHIRLEY JACKSON 135

MIRIAM (1945) TRUMAN CAPOTE 147

Responding to Unit One 162

TO THE READER 8

ON STYLE 10

LITERARY ELEMENTS OF THE SHORT STORY 13

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UNIT TWO

Literature from the 1950s and 1960s

THE VELDT (1950) RAY BRADBURY 169

BARN BURNING (1950) WILLIAM FAULKNER 185

ANGEL LEVINE (1955) BERNARD MALAMUD 207

THE WRYSONS (1978) JOHN CHEEVER 221

HARRISON BERGERON (1961) KURT VONNEGUT 231

EVERYTHING THAT RISES MUST CONVERGE (1961)

FLANNERY O’CONNOR 241

A & P (1961) JOHN UPDIKE 259

THE SKY IS GRAY (1963) ERNEST J. GAINES 269

THE WOOING OF ARIADNE (1965) HARRY MARK PETRAKIS 299

Responding to Unit Two 314


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UNIT THREE

Literature from the 1970s and 1980s

THE KEY (1970) ISAAC BASHEVIS SINGER 321

THE FLOWERS (1973) ALICE WALKER 333

WHERE HAVE YOU GONE, CHARMING BILLY? (1975) TIM O’BRIEN 337

EVERYTHING STUCK TO HIM (1981) RAYMOND CARVER 349

DETROIT SKYLINE, 1949 (1982) BOBBIE ANN MASON 357

AMERICAN HORSE (1983) LOUISE ERDRICH 377

THE WRITER IN THE FAMILY (1984) E.L. DOCTOROW 391

THE FISH (1986) RUSSELL BANKS 407

TRUCKSTOP (1987) GARRISON KEILLOR 417

RULES OF THE GAME (1989) AMY TAN 425

Responding to Unit Three 438


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UNIT FOUR

Literature from the 1990s

LADIES AND GENTLEMEN: (1990) JOYCE CAROL OATES 445

FAULT LINES (1992) BARBARA KINGSOLVER 455

TOP OF THE FOOD CHAIN (1992) T. CORAGHESSAN BOYLE 467

LETTERS FROM MY FATHER (1992) ROBERT OLEN BUTLER 475

THIS IS WHAT IT MEANS TO SAY PHOENIX, ARIZONA (1993)

SHERMAN ALEXIE 485

THE INTRUDER (1995) ANDRE DUBUS 499

MORTALS (1996) TOBIAS WOLFF 513

CHARLIE HOGLE’S EARRING (1997) PAUL THEROUX 525

Responding to Unit Four 540

GLOSSARY OF LITERARY TERMS 542

INDEX OF TITLES AND AUTHORS 546 © A

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n American father in search of his daughter in France. A ranch womanin the Salinas Valley who yearns for companionship and a sense of self-worth. A postmistress in Mississippi who decides to live at the post officeafter feuding with her eccentric family. A terrified soldier in Vietnam wholongs for his Minnesota home.

These are some of the characters and situations you will encounter inAmerican Short Stories: 1920 to the Present. They are as varied as the geographyof the U.S. itself. Yet their common denominator is that each is part of a shortstory, a form—like jazz or baseball—that some claim is uniquely American.

Of course, thousands of American short stories have been written, andcollections of them abound. What sets this volume apart is its emphasis onthe authors’ writing styles. By examining approaches as diverse as the spare,understated prose of Ernest Hemingway and the dazzling imagery of LouiseErdrich, you will come to recognize many elements of style. It has been saidthat style is comprised of the fingerprints an author leaves on a story, mak-ing it so unmistakably his or hers that a careful reader can tell who has writ-ten it without the byline.

As many of the writers in this volume have remarked, good readingcomes before good writing. Reading this book and completing the activitieswill help you shape your own writing style.

Aside from what you will learn about style, this volume provides anoverview of the American short story’s development over the last century.Many literary historians credit Edgar Allan Poe, the master of horror, withinventing, or at least refining, the short story form in the mid-19th century.He saw the short story as different from the novel not only in length but alsoin intention and form. Writing when Americans were still trying to create adistinct literature for their country, Poe developed highly atmospheric, tightlyconstructed stories in which brevity and unity contributed to a single,focused effect.

Other American writers followed Poe’s example by developing their ownsubjects and methods. From the beginning, a particular focus of theAmerican short story has been the theme of personal identity, often explored

TO THE READER


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in stories of personal quests that determine an individual’s sense of self andrelationship to others and the world.

During the 19th century, nearly all of the basic themes and issues of theAmerican short story were introduced and developed by writers such asNathaniel Hawthorne, Herman Melville, Mark Twain, and Kate Chopin.These and other writers focused on specifically American locations, subjects,and problems, developing a wide range of styles for storytelling. Their sto-ries arose from local history, moral fables, character studies, and the dilem-mas posed by race and class.

Against the backdrop of westward expansion, the effects of the IndustrialRevolution, and the impact of wave after wave of immigration, Americanwriters explored crucial moments of insight in response to conflicts anddilemmas. The short story—with its limited cast of characters, few scenes orepisodes, and focus on a single effect—provided a good forum for suchexplorations. It was practical, besides. With Americans spread out across acontinent, ten cent magazines delivered nationwide by mail gave the coun-try a sense of having its own literature. It also provided a mass market forshort story writers.

Change was even more rapid in the 20th century, when the stories in thisvolume begin. Social, political, and cultural developments included thebuilding of transcontinental highways, the Constitutional amendmentallowing women to vote, and broad recognition that World War I had intro-duced a new era of fears and possibilities. American stories since 1920 fre-quently focus on the relationships of individuals to the changing times,other people, and locations both familiar and new.

Many 20th-century writers whose works are represented in this bookconvey a firm sense of regional identity. Others focus on the lives of peoplein the city and the suburbs. Still others explore ethnic identity. Theapproaches of these writers range from the use of straightforward plots withconventional language to the creation of quirky plot lines, points of view,and narrative voices. The tone ranges from assertive pride to playful irony tosympathy for suffering and loss.

Since the United States is constantly changing, no single story couldappropriately be called the American story. America is a complex whole,comprised of countless individual experiences. To read this collection ofshort stories is not to define the American experience so much as to learnfrom various pieces of it. It is to find yourself—in a phrase borrowed fromJohn Steinbeck—in search of America.


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ON STYLE

s you study this collection of American short stories, you will be intro-duced to some of the 20th century’s most important writers. Almost cer-tainly you won’t “like” every one, but each author has a unique message tosend and a distinctive way of sending it. The way a writer conveys a messageis called his or her style. Whether in clothing, music, visual art, or literature,style is easy to see but hard to define. You might think of style in writing asthe way thoughts are dressed. While reading this collection of the greatestshort stories from the 20th century, you will be able to explore the authors’styles. Analyzing style will make you a more perceptive reader and help youdevelop your own writer’s voice. A good definition of style for this book isthat it is the author’s distinctive manner of expression.

As in most arts, it takes time and familiarity to recognize distinctionsamong literary styles. Perhaps an analogy will help here. To the untrainedeye, a forest is just a collection of indistinct trees. To the trained eye, howev-er, the forest is composed of a grove of white oaks on the hillside, a stand ofwillows by the stream, and thorn-bearing hawthorn trees along its edges. Asyou read, follow the Literary Lens prompts and pay close attention to theinformation about the author’s life and style that precedes each selection.Before long, clear distinctions will emerge.

In fact, some writers have such distinctive styles that they have spawnedimitators. The works of authors who follow paths blazed by ErnestHemingway and William Faulkner are sometimes called “Hemingwayesque”or “Faulknerian.” Hemingway probably would have been startled by suchpraise. He once wrote, “In stating as fully as I could how things were, it wasoften very difficult and I wrote awkwardly and the awkwardness is what theycalled my style.”

Hemingway is not alone in implying that he never deliberately set outto create a style, but only wrote as well as he could instinctively. KatherineAnne Porter once complained, “I’ve been called a stylist until I really couldtear my hair out. And I simply don’t believe in style. Style is you.”

Style is hard to describe because part of it is a certain indefinableuniqueness. Some aspects of style are easier to pin down, however. That’s


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because style includes the set of choices and techniques that enable a writerto tell a story. Choices regarding characterization, setting, and tone—toname a few—impact the style of a story. But there are other sources of style,such as the author’s background, whether that author is a man or a woman,and the author’s race or ethnicity.

For example, F. Scott Fitzgerald grew up in modest circumstances in St.Paul, Minnesota. He later left the Midwest and became fascinated with theflamboyant rich of the East Coast. Fitzgerald’s descriptions often mix criti-cism, sympathy, and awe for the rich lifestyle, as in this one-line charactersketch in his novel The Great Gatsby: “Her voice is full of money.” The sto-ries of Alice Walker, on the other hand, come out of her experience as awoman of color growing up in the United States. Her fiction often depicts afemale character finding her way in an environment of oppression.

Personal values also determine writers’ attitudes toward their characters.John Steinbeck’s sympathies for those who fled the Oklahoma Dust Bowl ofthe 1930s went into his writing about the struggle of common people foreconomic justice. Flannery O’Connor’s fiction reflects her devoutCatholicism; her grotesque characters and often violent story lines expressher belief in the need for salvation. The combination of background, gen-der, ethnicity, and values makes up the author’s world view.

Style also develops from writers’ responses to earlier writers they haveread. Some choose to work within a stylistic tradition, such as social real-ism, in which the everyday lives of characters are depicted against a social,political, and economic background that is presented as a matter of fact.John Steinbeck, Katherine Anne Porter, John Updike, and Russell Banks areamong the American writers in this tradition. Other writers rebel against tra-dition or find it necessary to innovate. They develop new styles to convey aparticular point of view. For example, William Faulkner uses internalmonologue to narrate stories through characters whose limitations wouldmake it impossible for them to tell their stories in the usual way. RayBradbury and Kurt Vonnegut use futuristic settings in order to question andprobe current attitudes and trends.

Another aspect of style is tone, or the author’s attitude toward his or hersubject. Words such as “sympathetic,” “comic,” “passionate,” or “harsh” canbe used to describe the attitude of the writer. The tone helps determine thestory’s intellectual and emotional impact on the reader. One of the domi-nant tones of fiction in the 20th century is irony. Irony reflects the sadnessor humor resulting from the gap between life as it is idealized, and life as it


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really is. Generally irony is used to criticize some aspect of society or toreveal the silliness of people’s behavior. Irony also results from unusual orunexpected points of view, oddly humorous situations, and shocking reve-lations or sudden turns of event. Sherman Alexie uses ironic humor toreveal the sad realities of Native American life on and off the reservation.Flannery O’Connor, Kurt Vonnegut, John Cheever, Joyce Carol Oates, andT. Coraghessan Boyle are among many whose stories use irony that is some-times comic and sometimes bitingly satirical.

Finally, style includes the way a writer uses language. Some writers, likeThomas Wolfe, are said to be lyrical—that is, expressing intense personalemotions in much the same way as a songwriter or poet. Some, likeRaymond Carver, are considered minimalists—that is, they let the events ofthe story speak for themselves without much interpretation from the author.Others, like Harry Mark Petrakis, are described as colorful, meaning full ofvariety and interest. Still others, such as T. Coraghessan Boyle, are labeledenergetic, writing in a way that is so highly charged the reader has littlechoice but to go along for the ride.

Other contributions to style include: language used by the story’s narra-tor and in the dialogue of characters; variations in dialect and usage that aretied to particular groups of people or regions of the country; repetitions ofkey words and phrases; and even the length and structure of individual sen-tences. Truman Capote once wrote, “I think of myself as a stylist, and styl-ists can become notoriously obsessed with the placing of a comma, theweight of a semicolon.”

Faulkner’s long, sometimes convoluted sentences convey the dynamicintensity of his characters’ thoughts and emotions while the dialogue of hischaracters is written in the rural vernacular of his native Mississippi. Therhythm of Yiddish storytelling is reflected in the prose of Isaac BashevisSinger. The speech of Katherine Anne Porter’s characters often reflects herroots in rural Texas and the languages of Mexico and other countries inwhich she lived. The dialogue of the American-born daughters and nativeChinese mothers in Amy Tan’s stories reveal the barriers that language dif-ferences can create within a family as well as within a society.

Ultimately, how you respond to the author’s style contributes greatly tothe pleasure of reading. As American poet Robert Frost put it, “All the fun’sin how you say a thing.”


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Literature from the 1920s to the 1940s

The years between 1920 and 1950 were ones of tumult and

growth for the United States. This was reflected in the literature

of the period as the country recovered from the trauma of

World War I and then reveled in the energetic social and cul-

tural ferment of the “Roaring Twenties.” The exuberance of the

twenties was stilled in the thirties as the country grappled with

economic disaster, which began with the stock market crash of

1929. The crash, which was followed by a long-term depres-

sion and a terrible drought in the country’s heartland, led to

quiet despair for many Americans. Ironically, it took World

War II to restore the economy as the country’s factories began

to produce the material needed to allow the U.S. to take a lead-

ing role in stopping fascism and imperialism in Europe.

The thirties and forties were major decades in the era

referred to as modern. In this period, much of the writing

reflected a national mood of sober reality rather than the ear-

lier optimism of the beginning of the century. A sense of sepa-

ration, deprivation, and loss was prevalent. This is reflected in

many of the stories and novels of the era, such as Ernest

Hemingway’s war stories and F. Scott Fitzgerald’s tales of The

Jazz Age and the “crack-up” that followed it. Meanwhile, John

Steinbeck contributed gritty stories of working-class struggle.

In many of the short stories from the period, dreaming, heal-

ing, and survival are prominent themes. Also notable is a tone

of wistfulness for something better—more money and security,

more excitement or love, peace in the family and the world.

American literature of this era also reflected the begin-

nings of numerous migrations. African Americans were drawn

from the South by promises of more freedom and economic

opportunity up North. The artistic flowering of the Harlem

top to bottom: 1930: Couple Descending aStaircase by J.C. Leyendecker illustrates theindulgent pursuit of pleasure and wealthduring the 1920s. ★ 1933: The White AngelBreadline by Dorothea Lange.This andother Lange photos put a face on the devastation of the Great Depression.★ 1945: The Liberation of Buchenwaldby Margaret Bourke-White showed the world the horror of the WWII Nazi concentration camps.


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Renaissance was one reflection of this trend. At the same time,

there was a nationwide migration from the country to the

cities, giving rise to new possibilities as well as new problems.

A strain of nostalgia for simpler or more innocent times can be

heard in the stories of Wolfe and Fitzgerald. And finally, tens

of thousands were drawn toward the “golden” West, a migra-

tion chronicled in the fiction of John Steinbeck.

Many of the stories of this period focus less on historical

or public events than on the specific places and families in

which individuals made their lives. In his novels and stories,

Thomas Wolfe wrote poignantly about what it means to long

for home, and James Thurber’s cartoons and stories provided

readers with a humorous view of their own silliness. Regional

writers from the Midwest (including Hemingway and

Fitzgerald) and from the South (Wolfe, William Faulkner,

Carson McCullers, Eudora Welty, and Truman Capote) gained

a national readership.

The styles of this period range from the pared-down sen-

tences of Hemingway to the brilliantly descriptive writing of

Fitzgerald and the emotional prose of Wolfe. Katherine Anne

Porter developed sensitive and

complex character studies.

Faulkner experimented with inter-

nal monologue and stream-of-

consciousness. The basic tone of

literature of the era was ironic—

one that called attention to the

gap between what people believed

and wanted, and what their lives

were really like.

top to bottom: 1930: Adolph Hitler at a Nazirally in Dortmund, Germany. ★ 1936: Death of a Loyalist Soldier by Robert Capa, taken during the Spanish Civil War (1936–1939).Almost 3,000 American volunteers formed theAbe Lincoln Brigade in a losing cause to defend Spain against a military takeover led by General Francisco Franco. ★ 1936: DustBowl by Arthur Rothstein. Severe droughtcaused the collapse of farming in the Midwestat a time when America was already sufferingfrom the Depression. ★ 1940: St. Paul’sCathedral was photographed by John Tophamduring a WWII firebomb attack on London.★ 1945: Iwo Jima by Joe Rosenthal. Marinesraise the flag at the top of Mt. Suribachi on theJapanese island of Iwo Jima.A fierce battle forthe island raged for 36 days and resulted in over 23,000 U.S. casualties, including three of the flag raisers in the picture.


Ernest Hemingway1899–1961

About the AuthorAn innovative writing style and an adventurous,much-publicized life made Ernest Hemingwaynot only one of the most influential writers ofthe 20th century but also a cultural icon. Aleader of the post-World War I group of artistsknown as “The Lost Generation,” Hemingwaywas a big game hunter and fisherman, worldtraveler, and war correspondent.These pursuitsinfluenced his work, which is often set in Africaor Europe.

Born to a doctor’s family in Oak Park,Illinois, Hemingway edited his high school news-paper and worked as a reporter at The Kansas

City Star. He served as an ambu-lance driver during World War Iand was seriously wounded atthe age of eighteen.

Like the heroes of his fic-tion, the author courted danger to prove hiscourage.Two plane crashes late in life left him ina state of chronic pain that some say promptedhis suicide. Like his father before him, he died ofa self-inflicted gunshot wound. Among his best-known works are the novels A Farewell to Armsand The Old Man and the Sea, the latter of whichearned the Pulitzer Prize.

Pay attention to the mood of this story.

The Author’s StyleMany of Hemingway’s stories involve initiationsor tests, both of which stress codes of conductthat typically require courage and endurance. Hischaracters are involved in violent activities suchas boxing, hunting, bullfighting, and combat,where they are in a position to suffer both phys-ical and psychological wounds.

Spare, understated prose is a hallmark of theHemingway style. It emphasizes carefully pared-down declarative sentences based on simplesyntax, strategic repetition, and a minimum ofexplanatory material. This style neverthelessconveys his characters’ situations and feelings. It isconsidered by many to be his most importantcontribution to 20th-century American fiction.

Hemingway mistrusted flowery and official-sound-ing language, preferring to use much simpler, con-crete language in both narration and dialogue.

The ironic tone of Hemingway’s storytellingis also crucial. In his war stories, it reflects hiscynicism about authorities who use notions suchas duty in pushing naïve soldiers to sacrificethemselves. Sometimes a Hemingway characteruses irony to protect himself from fully acknowl-edging the depth of his pain. So it is particularlyimportant whenever a Hemingway characterdoes make a direct statement about his feelingsor his situation.The story you are about to readowes its insight to the author’s personal warexperiences.

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LITERARY LENS

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n the fall the war was always there, but we did not go to it anymore. It was cold in the fall in Milan

1and the dark came very

early. Then the electric lights came on, and it was pleasantalong the streets looking in the windows. There was muchgame hanging outside the shops, and the snow powdered inthe fur of the foxes and the wind blew their tails. The deerhung stiff and heavy and empty, and small birds blew in the

wind and the wind turned their feathers. It was a cold fall and thewind came down from the mountains.

We were all at the hospital every afternoon, and there weredifferent ways of walking across the town through the dusk to thehospital. Two of the ways were alongside canals, but they were long.Always, though, you crossed a bridge across a canal to enter the

ERNEST HEMINGWAY

21

INANOTHER

COUNTRY

INANOTHER

COUNTRY

1 Milan: a large city in northern Italy

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22 Ernest Hemingway

hospital. There was a choice of three bridges. On one of them a woman soldroasted chestnuts. It was warm, standing in front of her charcoal fire, and thechestnuts were warm afterward in your pocket. The hospital was very old andvery beautiful, and you entered through a gate and walked across a courtyardand out a gate on the other side. There were usually funerals starting from thecourtyard. Beyond the old hospital were the new brick pavilions, and therewe met every afternoon and were all very polite and interested in what wasthe matter, and sat in the machines that were to make so much difference.

The doctor came up to the machine where I was sitting and said: “Whatdid you like best to do before the war? Did you practice a sport?”

I said: “Yes, football.”“Good,” he said. “You will be able to play football again better than

ever.” My knee did not bend and the leg dropped straight from the knee to the

ankle without a calf, and the machine was to bend the knee and make itmove as in riding a tricycle. But it did not bend yet, and instead the machinelurched when it came to the bending part. The doctor said: “That will allpass. You are a fortunate young man. You will play football again like achampion.”

In the next machine was a major who had a little hand like a baby’s. Hewinked at me when the doctor examined his hand, which was between twoleather straps that bounced up and down and flapped the stiff fingers, andsaid: “And will I too play football, captain-doctor?” He had been a very greatfencer, and before the war the greatest fencer in Italy.

The doctor went to his office in a back room and brought a photographwhich showed a hand that had been withered almost as small as the major’s,before it had taken a machine course, and after was a little larger. The majorheld the photograph with his good hand and looked at it very carefully. “Awound?” he asked.

“An industrial accident,” the doctor said.“Very interesting, very interesting,” the major said, and handed it back to

the doctor.“You have confidence?”“No,” said the major.There were three boys who came each day who were about the same age

I was. They were all three from Milan, and one of them was to be a lawyer,and one was to be a painter, and one had intended to be a soldier, and after

pavilions:annexes or outbuildings


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23In Another Country

2 Scala: La Scala, a famous opera house in Milan

3 “A basso gli ufficiali!”: Italian for “Down with the officers!”

4 Arditi: heavily armed and highly trained soldiers who were given the most dangerous combat assignments

we were finished with the machines, sometimes we walked back together tothe Café Cova, which was next door to the Scala.

2We walked the short way

through the communist quarter because we were four together. The peoplehated us because we were officers, and from a wine-shop someone would callout, “A basso gli ufficiali!”

3as we passed. Another boy who walked with us

sometimes and made us five wore a blacksilk handkerchief across his face because hehad no nose then and his face was to berebuilt. He had gone out to the front fromthe military academy and been woundedwithin an hour after he had gone into thefront line for the first time. They rebuilt hisface, but he came from a very old familyand they could never get the nose exactlyright. He went to South America andworked in a bank. But this was a long timeago, and then we did not any of us knowhow it was going to be afterward. We onlyknew then that there was always the war,but that we were not going to it any more.

We all had the same medals, except theboy with the black silk bandage across hisface, and he had not been at the front longenough to get any medals. The tall boy withthe very pale face who was to be a lawyerhad been lieutenant of Arditi

4and had three

medals of the sort we each had only one of.He had lived a very long time with deathand was a little detached. We were all a lit-tle detached, and there was nothing thatheld us together except that we met everyafternoon at the hospital. Although, as we walked to the Cova through thetough part of town, walking in the dark, with light and singing coming outof the wine-shops, and sometimes having to walk into the street when the

ERNEST HEMINGWAY RECOVERING FROM WWI WOUNDS,ITALY, 1919


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24 Ernest Hemingway

5 fratellanza: brotherhood

6 abnegazione: sacrifice

7 hunting-hawks: Literally, hunting hawks are birds trained to hunt and kill prey; with reference to war, “hawks” are people who are pro-military.

men and women would crowd together on thesidewalk so that we would have had to jostlethem to get by, we felt held together by therebeing something that had happened that they,the people who disliked us, did not under-stand.

We ourselves all understood the Cova,where it was rich and warm and not too brightlylighted, and noisy and smoky at certain hours,

and there were always girls at the tables and the illustrated papers on a rackon the wall. The girls at the Cova were very patriotic, and I found that themost patriotic people in Italy were the café girls—and I believe they are stillpatriotic.

The boys at first were very polite about my medals and asked me what Ihad done to get them. I showed them the papers, which were written in verybeautiful language and full of fratellanza

5and abnegazione,

6but which really

said, with the adjectives removed, that I had been given the medals becauseI was an American. After that their manner changed a little toward me,although I was their friend against outsiders. I was a friend, but I was neverreally one of them after they had read the citations, because it had been dif-ferent with them and they had done very different things to get their medals.I had been wounded, it was true; but we all knew that being wounded, afterall, was really an accident. I was never ashamed of the ribbons, though, andsometimes, after the cocktail hour, I would imagine myself having done allthe things they had done to get their medals; but walking home at nightthrough the empty streets with the cold wind and all the shops closed, tryingto keep near the street lights, I knew that I would never have done suchthings, and I was very much afraid to die, and often lay in bed at night bymyself, afraid to die and wondering how I would be when I went back to thefront again.

The three with the medals were like hunting-hawks;7

and I was not ahawk, although I might seem a hawk to those who had never hunted; they,the three, knew better and so we drifted apart. But I stayed good friends with

The boys at first were very

polite about my medals

and asked me what I had

done to get them.


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25In Another Country

the boy who had been wounded his first day at the front, because he wouldnever know now how he would have turned out; so he could never be acceptedeither, and I liked him because I thought perhaps he would not have turnedout to be a hawk either.

The major, who had been the great fencer, did not believe in bravery, andspent much time while we sat in the machines correcting my grammar. Hehad complimented me on how I spoke Italian, and we talked together veryeasily. One day I had said that Italian seemed such an easy language to methat I could not take a great interest in it; everything was so easy to say. “Ah,yes,” the major said. “Why, then, do you not take up the use of grammar?”So we took up the use of grammar, and soon Italian was such a difficult lan-guage that I was afraid to talk to him until I had the grammar straight in mymind.

The major came very regularly to the hospital. I do not think he evermissed a day, although I am sure he did not believe in the machines. Therewas a time when none of us believed in the machines, and one day the majorsaid it was all nonsense. The machines were new then and it was we whowere to prove them. It was an idiotic idea, he said, “a theory, like another.” Ihad not learned my grammar, and he said I was a stupid impossible disgrace,and he was a fool to have bothered with me. He was a small man and he satstraight up in his chair with his right hand thrust into the machine andlooked straight ahead at the wall while the straps thumped up and downwith his fingers in them.

“What will you do when the war is over if it is over?” he asked me. “Speakgrammatically!”

“I will go to the States.”“Are you married?”“No, but I hope to be.”“The more of a fool you are,” he said. He seemed very angry. “A man

must not marry.”“Why, Signor Maggiore?”“Don’t call me ‘Signor Maggiore.’”“Why must not a man marry?”“He cannot marry. He cannot marry,” he said angrily. “If he is to lose

everything, he should not place himself in a position to lose that. He shouldnot place himself in a position to lose. He should find things he cannotlose.”


8 invalided out of the war: meaning that the major was injured and could no longer fight in the war

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26 Ernest Hemingway

He spoke very angrily and bitterly, and looked straight ahead while hetalked.

“But why should he necessarily lose it?”“He’ll lose it,” the major said. He was looking at the wall. Then he looked

down at the machine and jerked his little hand out from between the strapsand slapped it hard against his thigh. “He’ll lose it,” he almost shouted.“Don’t argue with me!” Then he called to the attendant who ran themachines. “Come and turn this damned thing off.”

He went back into the other room for the light treatment and the mas-sage. Then I heard him ask the doctor if he might use his telephone and heshut the door. When he came back into the room, I was sitting in anothermachine. He was wearing his cape and had his cap on, and he came directlytoward my machine and put his arm on my shoulder.

“I am sorry,” he said, and patted me on the shoulder with his good hand.“I would not be rude. My wife has just died. You must forgive me.”

“Oh—” I said, feeling sick for him. “I am so sorry.”He stood there biting his lower lip. “It is very difficult,” he said. “I can-

not resign myself.”He looked straight past me and out through the window. Then he began

to cry. “I am utterly unable to resign myself,” he said and choked. And thencrying, his head up looking at nothing, carrying himself straight and soldierly,with tears on both cheeks and biting his lips, he walked past the machinesand out the door.

The doctor told me that the major’s wife, who was very young and whomhe had not married until he was definitely invalided out of the war,

8had died

of pneumonia. She had been sick only a few days. No one expected her to die.The major did not come to the hospital for three days. Then he came at theusual hour, wearing a black band on the sleeve of his uniform. When he cameback, there were large framed photographs around the wall, of all sorts ofwounds before and after they had been cured by the machines. In front of themachine the major used were three photographs of hands like his that werecompletely restored. I do not know where the doctor got them. I always under-stood we were the first to use the machines. The photographs did not makemuch difference to the major because he only looked out of the window.


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Responding to the Story

1. LITERARY LENS What other ‘countries’ did you discover in this story?

2. Hemingway once defined courage as “grace under pressure.” How doyou think the narrator and the major in this story might define ordescribe courage?

3. Hemingway is known as an “existentialist” writer. Existentialism is thebelief that humans exist in a universe that is impossible to understand.Nonetheless, we must still assume responsibility for our actions with-out knowing for certain what is right or wrong. In what ways does “InAnother Country” reflect the idea of existentialism?

4. What do you think the view of the narrator is toward war and the mil-itary establishment? Support your answer with evidence from the text.

5. THE AUTHOR’S STYLE Read the passage below. Locate passages inthe story that reflect Hemingway’s interest in the “true simple declara-tive sentence.” Then attempt to emulate Hemingway’s method andstyle. For example, you might look for the first declarative sentence ina piece of your own writing.Then cut the “scrollwork or ornament” and “go from there.”

27

Responding to the Story

1. LITERARY LENS Mood is conveyed through descriptions of the setting, the author’s (or narrator’s) attitude toward the story, andthrough imagery. Select one of the images in the story and describehow it influences the mood of the story.

2. Hemingway once defined courage as “grace under pressure.” In whatway, if at all, is this idea demonstrated in “In Another Country”?

3. Hemingway is known as an “existentialist” writer. Existentialism is thebelief that humans exist in an empty universe that does not care about human existence. In the face of this nothingness and loneliness,humans must create their own meaning and purpose. In what waysdoes “In Another Country” reflect the idea of existentialism?

4. What do you think the view of the narrator is toward war and themilitary establishment? Support your answer with evidence from the text.

5. THE AUTHOR’S STYLE After reading the quotation below, locatetwo sentences in the story that seem to fit his description of the “true simple declarative sentence.”

One True Sentence

Sometimes when I was starting a new story and I could not get it going . . . I would stand and look out over the roofs of Paris and think,“Do not worry.You have always written before and you will write now. All you have to do is write one true sentence. Write the truest sentence that you know.” So finally I would write one true sentence, andthen go on from there . . . If I started to write elaborately, or like some-one introducing or presenting something, I found that I could cut thatscrollwork or ornament out and throw it away and start with the first true simple declarative sentence I had written.

—Ernest Hemingway, A Moveable Feast


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162

RESPONDING TO UNIT ONE

Experiencing

1. For their grotesque and macabre incidents, both “The Lottery” and “Miriam” mightappear in a collection of horror stories.Which do you find more satisfyingly creepy and why?

2. Reread the last paragraph of each story in this unit.Which do you think is the mostmemorable and why?

Interpreting

3. In three of the stories in this unit—“He,” “The Far and the Near,” and “TheChrysanthemums”—at least one important character is never given a name.Why doyou think the authors made this choice in each instance?

4. The theme of the mysterious stranger is common in literature. In the traditional formof this theme, a mysterious stranger appears in the life of an individual or community. Ina series of dramatic events, the stranger makes a sacrifice through which the life of theindividual or community is improved. Choose one of the short stories in this chapterthat features a stranger:“The Chrysanthemums,” “Miriam,” or “The Black Ball.” Explainhow the story fits, or deviates from, the theme of the mysterious stranger.

5. The ball is important in “The Black Ball” and the black box plays a central role in “TheLottery.” What do these two objects have in common?

Evaluating

6. The first six stories in this unit have a theme of loss in common. In your opinion, whichstory evokes the most pathos?

7. Hemingway and Fitzgerald were both friends and competitors, moving in the samesocial circles and writing during the same era.What differences and similarities do yousee between “In Another Country” and “Babylon Revisited”?

8. The opening sentence of Anna Karenina by the Russian author Leo Tolstoy reads:“Allhappy families resemble one another; every unhappy family is unhappy in its own way.”In what unique ways are the families in “He” and “Why I Live at the P.O.” unhappy?


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163

WRITING ABOUT THE LITERATURE

Staying Power

The stories in this unit were all written more than 50 years ago.Write a persuasiveessay about which story you think has best stood the test of time.You may want to usepassages from the story as evidence. Consider what is timeless about the style, theme,or characters of the story you choose.

WRITING WITH STYLE

Choose one of these two assignments.

Sucker’s Point of View

Using McCullers’ style, rewrite the climax of “Sucker” as an interior monologue fromthe point of view of Sucker.

“The Secret Life of _______”

Fill in the blank with the name of a seemingly ordinary character of your own creation.Using Thurber’s style, put this character into an everyday situation that the characterconverts into a grandiose fantasy starring him- or herself.

IN YOUR OWN STYLE

After reflecting on how important the theme of loss is in many of the stories in thisunit, consider your own life.What have you or someone you know either already lostor would most hate to lose? Write about this in your own style. Choose between taking a nonfiction approach or using your own or others’ experiences as a startingpoint for fiction.


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542

absurdism writing that reflects the idea that the universe is irrational and meaningless

allegory a literary work in which characters, objects, and events stand for abstractqualities outside the story such as goodness, pleasure, or evil

allusion a reference to an historical or literary figure or event

analogy a description of an unfamiliar thing through comparing it to something morewell-known

anecdote a short incident or story that illustrates a point; anecdotal stories usually havean informal storyteller’s tone

anti-hero a protagonist who displays traits opposite to the qualities usually associatedwith the traditional hero

archetype an image, character, symbol, plot, or other literary device that appears frequently enough in myths, folktales, and other literary works so as tobecome an important part of a culture

characterization the manner in which an author creates and develops a character utilizingexposition, dialogue, and action

climax the high point of a plot; sometimes coincides with the turning point or defining moment; some stories do not have a clear climax

colloquialism a local or regional expression

concrete a universal concern (one that applies to everyone, everywhere) addresseduniversal through a concrete, or local, setting

conflict the struggle between opposing forces; external conflict involves an outer forcesuch as nature or another character while internal conflict exists inside a person, say between a hero’s sense of duty and desire for freedom

denouement literally “the untying;” the part of a plot in which the conflict is “untied” orresolved; usually follows the climax

dialogue conversation between characters in a literary work

epiphany an event, sometimes mystical in nature, in which a character changes in profound ways due to the revelation of a simple yet powerful truth; alsosometimes called a defining moment, moment of clarity, or moment of truth

exposition information or background that is directly conveyed or explained, usually bythe narrator

GLOSSARY OF LITERARY TERMS


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543

fable a short story or tale that demonstrates a moral or truth; frequently containsfantasy elements such as talking animal characters

falling action the events of a plot that follow the climax; also referred to as the denouement or resolution

fantasy stories that contain characters, settings, and objects that could not exist, suchas dragons or magic swords; often heroic in nature and sometimes based onmyths and legends

figurative any of several techniques such as imagery, metaphor, or analogy that language describe an object or character through comparison to something else

figure of speech an expression that conveys meaning or increases an effect, usually through figurative language

first person see point of viewpoint of view

flashback an interruption of the normal chronological order of a plot to narrate eventsthat happened earlier

folktale a narrative, usually originating in an oral tradition, with a timeless and placeless setting and archetypal plot elements and characters; may containelements of fantasy as well

foreshadowing use of hints or clues about what will happen later in a plot

frame narrator a narrator of a story in which other narrators may appear to tell stories within the story

genre a distinctive type or category of literature, such as the epic, comedy, tragedy,short story, novel, science fiction, or mystery

gothic a type of writing that focuses on the macabre, grotesque, mysterious, and/orviolent; Southern Gothic refers to stories that have these elements and are set in the American South

idiom an expression that is peculiar to a group or community; often difficult totranslate

imagery vivid and striking descriptions of objects and details in a literary work, oftenthrough figurative language

in media res literally, “in the midst of things;” refers to a type of plot that begins at a highpoint of the action and fills in exposition later

interior the presentation in a literary work of the unspoken thoughts and feelings monologue of a character

interpretation an explanation of the meaning of a piece of literature, dependent in part onthe perspective of the reader


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544

irony a recognition and heightening of the difference between appearance and reality;situational irony occurs when events turn out differently than expected; dramaticirony occurs when the audience has important knowledge that a main character lacks

juxtaposition two or more things placed side by side, generally in an unexpected combination

local color a style of writing that developed just after the Civil War and that strives tomovement reveal the peculiarities of a particular place and the people who live there

metafiction fiction that contains within it a comment about the process of writing fiction

metaphor a figure of speech that implies a similarity between two unlike things

minimalist a spare, pared down style of writing made popular in the 1970s

morality play a play in which the characters personify moral or abstract qualities such asCharity or Death

motivation the reasons or forces that cause characters to act as they do

mysticism the belief that knowledge of God, truth, or reality can be gained through intuition or insight

myth a traditional story, often one that explains a belief or natural phenomenon

narrator a teller of a story; an unreliable narrator makes incorrect conclusions and biased assumptions; a naïve narrator doesn’t fully understand the events he or she narrates

neologism a newly coined word

oral tradition legends, folktales, and stories that were initially told orally

pathos an element of literature that evokes pity or compassion

plot the events of a story

point of view the perspective from which a story is narrated: in first person point of view thenarrator is a character in the story and uses the personal pronoun “I”; in thirdperson limited point of view, the narrator is outside the story but presents thestory through the thoughts and feelings of one character ; in third person omniscient point of view, the narrator is outside the story and knows the thoughtsand feelings of all characters and can comment on any part of the story

protagonist the main character of a story

realistic fiction fiction that attempts to describe the world in a realistic fashion

regionalism literature with an emphasis on locale or other local characteristics such asdialect

repartee quick, witty exchanges of dialogue

resolution the point at which the chief conflict or complication is worked out

rising action the events leading up to the climax of a plot


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545

satire writing that uses humor or ridicule to point out human shortcomings and follies

scenario a plot outline; one of many ways in which a story could be worked out

setting the time and place of the action of a story

simile a comparason of one thing to another that uses “like” or “as”

stream of the flow of various impressions—visual, auditory, psychological, intuitive—thatconsciousness represent the mind and heart of a character

subtext a hidden meaning, often symbolic or metaphorical, that must be inferred fromthe text given

surrealism a literary and artistic movement emphasizing the expression of the subconscious through dreamlike imagery

symbol an object that stands for or represents a more abstract concept, such as aneagle for freedom or a rose for love

tale a series of facts or events either told or written

theme the underlying meaning or message of a literary work

third person see point of viewlimited point of view

third person see point of viewomniscientpoint of view

tone the author or narrator’s attitude toward the subject of a work; an author mighthave an ironic, humorous, sarcastic, serious, or deadpan tone, to name a few

universality the quality of having feelings, thoughts, emotions, themes, or problems that crossall times and cultures

voice an author or character’s distinctive way of expressing himself or herself

world view the background, attitudes, and values of a society or individual


Documents

American Short Stories