Short Stories for English Courses Part 1

Short Stories for English Courses.

by Various (Rosa M. R. Mikels ed.).

PREFACE

Why must we confine the reading of our children to the older literary cla.s.sics? This is the question asked by an ever- increasing number of thoughtful teachers. They have no wish to displace or to discredit the cla.s.sics. On the contrary, they love and revere them. But they do wish to give their pupils something additional, something that pulses with present life, that is characteristic of to-day. The children, too, wonder that, with the great literary outpouring going on about them, they must always fill their cups from the cisterns of the past.

The short story is especially adapted to supplement our high- school reading. It is of a piece with our varied, hurried, efficient American life, wherein figure the business man's lunch, the dictagraph, the telegraph, the telephone, the automobile, and the railway "limited." It has achieved high art, yet conforms to the modern demand that our literature--since it must be read with despatch, if read at all--be compact and compelling. Moreover, the short story is with us in almost overwhelming numbers, and is probably here to stay. Indeed, our boys and girls are somewhat appalled at the quant.i.ty of material from which they must select their reading, and welcome any instruction that enables them to know the good from the bad. It is certain, therefore, that, whatever else they may throw into the educational discard when they leave the high school, they will keep and use anything they may have learned about this form of literature which has become so powerful a factor in our daily life.

This book does not attempt to select the greatest stories of the time. What tribunal would dare make such a choice? Nor does it attempt to trace the evolution of the short story or to point out natural types and differences. These topics are better suited to college cla.s.ses. Its object is threefold: to supply interesting reading belonging to the student's own time, to help him to see that there is no divorce between cla.s.sic and modern literature, and, by offering him material structurally good and typical of the qualities represented, to a.s.sist him in discriminating between the artistic and the inartistic. The stories have been carefully selected, because in the period of adolescence "nothing read fails to leave its mark"; [Footnote: G Stanley Hall, Adolescence, vol.

II.] they have also been carefully arranged with a view to the needs of the adolescent boy and girl. Stories of the type loved by primitive man, and therefore easily approached and understood, have been placed first. Those which appealed in periods of higher development follow, roughly in the order of their increasing difficulty. It is hoped, moreover, that this arrangement will help the student to understand and appreciate the development of the story. He begins with the simple tale of adventure and the simple story of character. As he advances he sees the story develop in plot, in character a.n.a.lysis, and in setting, until he ends with the psychological study of Markheim, remarkable for its complexity of motives and its great spiritual problem. Both the selection and the arrangement have been made with this further purpose in view-- "to keep the heart warm, reinforcing all its good motives, preforming choices, universalizing sympathies." [Footnote: Ibid.]

It is a pleasure to acknowledge, in this connection, the suggestions and the criticism of Mr. William N. Otto, Head of the Department of English in Shortridge High School, Indianapolis; and the courtesies of the publishers who have permitted the use of their material.

INTRODUCTION

I

REQUIREMENTS OF THE SHORT STORY

Critics have agreed that the short story must conform to certain conditions. First of all, the writer must strive to make one and only one impression. His time is too limited, his s.p.a.ce is too confined, his risk of dividing the attention of the reader is too great, to admit of more than this one impression. He therefore selects some moment of action or some phase of character or some particular scene, and focuses attention upon that. Life not infrequently gives such brief, clear-cut impressions. At the railway station we see two young people hurry to a train as if fearful of being detained, and we get the impression of romantic adventure. We pa.s.s on the street corner two men talking, and from a chance sentence or two we form a strong impression of the character of one or both. Sometimes we travel through a scene so desolate and depressing or so lovely and uplifting that the effect is never forgotten. Such glimpses of life and scene are as vivid as the vignettes revealed by the search-light, when its arm slowly explores a mountain-side or the sh.o.r.e of a lake and brings objects for a brief moment into high light. To secure this single strong impression, the writer must decide which of the three essentials-- plot, character, or setting--is to have first place.

As action appeals strongly to most people, and very adequately reveals character, the short-story writer may decide to make plot pre-eminent. He accordingly chooses his incidents carefully. Any that do not really aid in developing the story must be cast aside, no matter how interesting or attractive they may be in themselves.

This does not mean that an incident which is detached from the train of events may not be used. But such an incident must have proper relations provided for it. Thus the writer may wish to use incidents that belong to two separate stories, because he knows that by relating them he can produce a single effect. Shakespeare does this in Macbeth. Finding in the lives of the historic Macbeth and the historic King Duff incidents that he wished to use, he combined them. But he saw to it that they had the right relation, that they fitted into the chain of cause and effect. The reader will insist, as the writer knows, that the story be logical, that incident 1 shall be the cause of incident 2, incident 2 of incident 3, and so on to the end. The triangle used by Freytag to ill.u.s.trate the plot of a play may make this clear.

AC is the line of rising action along which the story climbs, incident by incident, to the point C; C is the turning point, the crisis, or the climax; CB is the line of falling action along which the story descends incident by incident to its logical resolution. Nothing may be left to luck or chance. In life the element of chance does sometimes seem to figure, but in the story it has no place. If the ending is not the logical outcome of events, the reader feels cheated. He does not want the situation to be too obvious, for he likes the thrill of suspense. But he wants the hints and foreshadowings to be sincere, so that he may safely draw his conclusions from them. This does not condemn, however, the "surprise" ending, so admirably used by O. Henry. The reader, in this case, admits that the writer has "played fair"

throughout, and that the ending which has so surprised and tickled his fancy is as logical as that he had forecast.

To aid in securing the element of suspense, the author often makes use of what Carl H. Grabo, in his The Art of the Short Story, calls the "negative" or "hostile" incident. Incidents, as he points out, are of two kinds--positive and negative. The first openly help to untangle the situation; the second seem to delay the straightening out of the threads or even to make the tangle worse. He ill.u.s.trates this by the story of Cinderella. The appearance of the fairy and her use of the magic wand are positive, or openly helpful incidents, in rescuing Cinderella from her lonely and neglected state. But her forgetfulness of the hour and her loss of the gla.s.s slipper are negative or hostile incidents. Nevertheless, we see how these are really blessings in disguise, since they cause the prince to seek and woo her.

The novelist may introduce many characters, because he has time and s.p.a.ce to care for them. Not so the short-story writer: he must employ only one main character and a few supporting characters.

However, when the plot is the main thing, the characters need not be remarkable in any way. Indeed, as Brander Matthews has said, the heroine may be "a woman," the hero "a man," not any woman or any man in particular. Thus, in The Lady or the Tiger? the author leaves the princess without definite traits of character, because his problem is not "what this particular woman would do, but what A woman would do." Sometimes, after reading a story of thrilling plot, we find that we do not readily recall the appearance or the names of the characters; we recall only what happened to them.

This is true of the women of James Fenimore Cooper's stories. They have no substantiality, but move like veiled figures through the most exciting adventures.

Setting may or may not be an important factor in the story of incident. What is meant by setting? It is an inclusive term. Time, place, local conditions, and sometimes descriptions of nature and of people are parts of it. When these are well cared for, we get an effect called "atmosphere." We know the effect the atmosphere has upon objects. Any one who has observed distant mountains knows that, while they remain practically unchanged, they never look the same on two successive days. Sometimes they stand out hard and clear, sometimes they are soft and alluring, sometimes they look unreal and almost melt into the sky behind them. So the atmosphere of a story may envelop people and events and produce a subtle effect upon the reader. Sometimes the plot material is such as to require little setting. The incidents might have happened anywhere. We hardly notice the absence of setting in our hurry to see what happens. This is true of many of the stories we enjoyed when we were children. For instance, in The Three Bears the incidents took place, of course, in the woods, but our imagination really supplied the setting. Most stories, however, whatever their character, use setting as carefully and as effectively as possible. Time and place are often given with exactness. Thus Bret Harte says: "As Mr. John Oakhurst, gambler, stepped into the main street of Poker Flat on the morning of the twenty-third of November, 1850, he was conscious of a change in its moral atmosphere since the preceding night." This definite mention of time and place gives an air of reality of the story. As to descriptions, the writer sifts them in, for he knows that few will bother to read whole paragraphs of description. He often uses local color, by which we mean the employment of epithets, phrases, and other expressions that impart a "feeling" for the place. This use of local color must not be confused with that intended to produce what is called an "impressionistic" effect. In the latter case the writer subordinates everything to this effect of scene.

This use of local color is discussed elsewhere.

Perhaps the writer wishes to make character the dominant element.

Then he subordinates plot and setting to this purpose and makes them contribute to it. In selecting the character he wishes to reveal he has wide choice. "Human nature is the same, wherever you find it," we are fond of saying. So he may choose a character that is quite common, some one he knows; and, having made much of some one trait and ignored or subordinated others, bring him before us at some moment of decision or in some strange, perhaps hostile, environment. Or the author may take some character quite out of the ordinary: the village miser, the recluse, or a person with a peculiar mental or moral twist. But, whatever his choice, it is not enough that the character be actually drawn from real life.

Indeed, such fidelity to what literally exists may be a hinderance to the writer. The original character may have done strange things and suffered strange things that cannot be accounted for. But, in the story, inconsistencies must be removed, and the conduct of the characters must be logical. Life seems inconsistent to all of us at times, but it is probably less so than it seems. People puzzle us by their apparent inconsistencies, when to themselves their actions seem perfectly logical. But, as Mr. Grabo points out, "In life we expect inconsistencies; in a story we depend upon their elimination." The law of cause and effect, which we found so indispensable in the story of plot, we find of equal importance in the story of character. There must be no sudden and unaccountable changes in the behavior or sentiments of the people in the story.

On the contrary, there must be reason in all they say and do.

Another demand of the character story is that the characters be lifelike. In the plot story, or in the impressionistic story, we may accept the flat figures on the canvas; our interest is elsewhere. But in the character story we must have real people whose motives and conduct we discuss pro and con with as much interest as if we knew them in the flesh. A character of this convincing type is Hamlet. About him controversy has always raged.

It is impossible to think of him as other than a real man.

Whenever the writer finds that the characters in his story have caused the reader to wax eloquent over their conduct, he may rest easy: he has made his people lifelike.

Setting in the character story is important, for it is in this that the chief actor moves and has his being. His environment is continually causing him to speak and act. The incidents selected, even though some of them may seem trivial in themselves, must reveal depth after depth in his soul. Whatever the means by which the author reveals the character--whether by setting, conduct, a.n.a.lysis, dialogue, or soliloquy--his task is a hard one. In Markheim we have practically all of these used, with the result that the character is unmistakable and convincing.

Stories of scenes are neither so numerous nor so easy to produce successfully as those of plot and character. But sometimes a place so profoundly impresses a writer that its demands may not be disregarded. Robert Louis Stevenson strongly felt the influence of certain places. "Certain dank gardens cry aloud for murder; certain old houses demand to be haunted; certain coasts are set apart for shipwreck. Other spots seem to abide their destiny, suggestive and impenetrable." Perhaps all of us have seen some place of which we have exclaimed: "It is like a story!" When, then, scene is to furnish the dominant interest, plot and character become relatively insignificant and shadowy. "The pressure of the atmosphere," says Brander Matthews, holds our attention. The Fall of the House of Usher, by Edgar Allan Poe, is a story of this kind. It is the scene that affects us with dread and horror; we have no peace until we see the house swallowed up by the tarn, and have fled out of sight of the tarn itself. The plot is extremely slight, and the Lady Madeline and her unhappy brother hardly more than shadows.

It must not be supposed from the foregoing explanation that the three essentials of the short story are ever really divorced. They are happily blended in many of our finest stories. Nevertheless, a.n.a.lysis of any one of these will show that in the mind of the writer one purpose was pre-eminent. On this point Robert Louis Stevenson thus speaks: "There are, so far as I know, three ways and three only of writing a story. You may take a plot and fit characters to it, or you may take a character and choose incidents and situations to develop it, or, lastly, you may take a certain atmosphere and get actions and persons to express and realize it."

When to this clear conception of his limitations and privileges the author adds an imagination that clearly visualizes events and the "verbal magic" by which good style is secured, he produces the short story that is a masterpiece.

HOW THIS BOOK MAY BE USED

This book may be used in four ways. First, it may serve as an appetizer. Even the casual reading of good literature has a tendency to create a demand for more. Second, it may be made the basis for discussion and comparison. By using these stories, the works of recognized authors, as standards, the student may determine the value of such stories as come into his home. Third, these selections may be studied in a regular short-story course, such as many high schools have, to ill.u.s.trate the requirements and the types of this form of narration. The chapter on "The Requirements of the Short Story" will be found useful both in this connection and in the comparative study of stories. Fourth, the student will better appreciate and understand the short story if he attempts to tell or to write one. This does not mean that we intend to train him for the literary market. Our object is entirely different. No form of literature brings more real joy to the child than the story. Not only does he like to hear stories; he likes to tell them. And where the short-story course is rightly used, he likes to write them. He finds that the pleasure of exercising creative power more than offsets the drudgery inevitable in composition. A plan that has been satisfactorily carried out in the cla.s.sroom is here briefly outlined.

The teacher reads with the cla.s.s a story in which plot furnishes the main interest. This type is chosen because it is more easily a.n.a.lyzed by beginners. The cla.s.s discusses this, applying the tests of the short story given elsewhere in this book. Then a number of short stories of different types are read and compared.

Next, each member of the cla.s.s selects from some recent book or magazine a short story he enjoys. This he outlines and reports to the cla.s.s. If this report is not satisfactory, the cla.s.s insists that either the author or the reporter be exonerated. The story is accordingly read to the cla.s.s, or is read and reported on by another member. The cla.s.s is then usually able to decide whether the story is faulty or the first report inadequate.

Next the cla.s.s gives orally incidents that might or might not be expanded into short stories. The students soon discover that some of these require the lengthy treatment of a novel, that others are good as simple incidents but nothing more, and that still others might develop into satisfactory short stories. The cla.s.s is now asked to develop original plots. Since plots cannot be produced on demand, but require time for the mind to act subconsciously, the cla.s.s practises, during the "period of incubation," the writing of dialogue. For these the teacher suggests a list of topics, although any student is free to subst.i.tute one of his own. Among the topics that have been used are: "Johnny goes with his mother to church for the first time," "Mrs. Hennessy is annoyed by the chickens of Mrs. Jones," "Albert applies for a summer job."

Sometimes the teacher relates an incident, and has the cla.s.s reproduce it in dialogue. By comparing their work with dialogue by recognized writers the youthful authors soon learn how to punctuate and paragraph conversation, and where to place necessary comment and explanation. They also discover that dialogue must either reveal character or advance the story; and that it must be in keeping with the theme and maintain the tone used at the beginning. A commonplace dialogue must not suddenly become romantic in tone, and dialect must not lapse into ordinary English.

INTRODUCTION

The original plots the cla.s.s offers later may have been suggested in many ways. Newspaper accounts, court reports, historical incidents, family traditions--all may contribute. Sometimes the student proudly declares of his plot, "I made it out of my own head." These plots are arranged in outline form to show how incident 1 developed incident 2, that incident 3, and so on to the conclusion. The cla.s.s points out the weak places in these plots and offers helpful suggestions. This co-operation often produces surprisingly good results. A solution that the troubled originator of the plot never thought of may come almost as an inspiration from the cla.s.s. Criticism throughout is largely constructive.

After the student has developed several plots in outline, he usually finds among them one that he wishes to use for his story.

This is worked out in some detail, submitted to the cla.s.s, and later in a revised form to the teacher. The story when complete is corrected and sometimes rewritten.

Most of the cla.s.s prefer to write stories of plot, but some insist upon trying stories of character or of setting. These pupils are shown the difficulties in their way, but are allowed to try their hand if they insist. Sometimes the results are good; more often the writer, after an honest effort, admits that he cannot handle his subject well and subst.i.tutes a story of plot.

In any case the final draft is sure to leave much to be desired; but even so, the gain has been great. The pupil writer has constantly been measuring his work by standards of recognized excellence in form and in creative power; as a result he has learned to appreciate the short story from the art side. Moreover, he has had a large freedom in his work that has relieved it of drudgery. And, best of all, he has been doing original work with plastic material; and to work with plastic material is always a source of joy, whether it be the mud that the child makes into pies, the clay that the artist moulds into forms of beauty, or the facts of life that the creative imagination of the writer shapes into literature.

THE FIRST CHRISTMAS TREE

A STORY OF THE FOREST

BY HENRY VAN d.y.k.e

This story is placed first because it is of the type that first delighted man. It is the story of high adventure, of a struggle with the forces of nature, barbarous men, and heathen G.o.ds. The hero is "a hunter of demons, a subduer of the wilderness, a woodman of the faith." He seeks hardships and conquers them. The setting is the illumitable forest in the remote past. The forest, like the sea, makes an irresistible appeal to the imagination.

Either may be the scene of the marvellous and the thrilling. Quite unlike the earliest tales, this story is enriched with description and exposition; nevertheless, it has their simplicity and dignity.

It reminds us of certain of the great Biblical narratives, such as the contest between Elijah and the prophets of Baal and the victory of Daniel over the jealous presidents and princes of Darius. In "The First Christmas Tree," as in many others of these stories, a third person is the narrator. But the hero may tell his own adventures. "I did this. I did that. Thus I felt at the conclusion." Instances are Defoe's "Robinson Crusoe" and Stevenson's "Kidnapped." But whether in the first or third person, the story holds us by the magic of adventure.