American Short Story critical brief

English 183, Introduction to the American Short Story, Final Exam:

Choose TWO of the following questions and write thoughtful essays (at least one page in length) in response to them, employing appropriate examples and QUOTATIONS from the stories.  Depending on the questions you choose, you may need to refer to stories read in the first half of the semester, in addition to those read in the second.. Each should response must be at least one page in length.

  1. This semester you have read twenty American short stories written over a period of about two hundred years. (Stories are listed below) Having done so, describe what you see as the primary trends in the evolution of this literary form.  That is, attempt to explain how the American short story has changed from the time of Washington Irving and Nathaniel Hawthorne until now.
  2. Choose a single story whose opening page or so clearly establishes the tensions and confrontations to come and whose ending offers a resonating metaphor of the story’s theme(s).  Carefully explain how these opening and closing passages create both meaning and satisfaction for the reader.
  3. By contrasting two stories written in the last sixty years (since 1950), attempt to convey the range and scope of the modern American short story.  Proceed like this: choose two stories that you see as very different from one another; then explain these differences in terms of (a) subject,  (b) writing style, or voice (c) technique (the author’s manipulation of point of view and time), and (d) plot.
  4. This is a question about the untrustworthiness of first impressions.  Choose a story you failed to understand on first reading but then came to understand and appreciate after giving it a second look, or after reading your classmates’ responses to it.  Explain what you missed on first reading.

 

 

Story list from the whole semester.

The Legend of Sleepy Hollow,” by Washington Irving

“The Birthmark,” by Nathaniel Hawthorne

“The Black Cat,” by Edgar Allan Poe

“The Coup de Grace,” by Ambrose Bierce

“A White Heron, by Sarah Orne Jewett

“The Storm,” by Kate Chopin

“The Blue Hotel,” by Stephen Crane

“The Use of Force,” by William Carlos Williams

“The Grave,” by Katherine Anne Porter)

“The Gilded Six-Bits,” by Zora Neale Hurston

“Babylon Revisited,” by F. Scott Fitzgerald

“A Clean, Well-Lighted Place,” by Ernest Hemingway

“Thank You, Ma’am,” by Langston Hughes

“Sonny’s Blues,” by James Baldwin

“The Ones Who Walk Away from Omelas,” by Ursula LeGuin

“A Girl’s Story,” by Toni Cade Bambara

“Hunters in the Snow,” by Tobias Wolff

“The Things They Carried,” by Tim O’Brien

“Fleur,” by Louise Erdrich