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Short Story Analysis

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Short Story Analysis
Short Story Analysis In this essay, your purpose is to fully explain an element (theme, characterization or symbolism) in a short story of your choice. I will provide you with examples of each element from stories by Hemingway, Updike and Vonnegut ; you may write about any of these authors except the ones that we have discussed in class. However, you may choose to investigate an author of your own choice. Below I have listed some contemporary authors and story collections you may want to check out:
Jhumpa Lahiri
Flannery O'Connor
Raymond Carver
William Faulkner
David Sedaris
Tobias Wolff
Ernest Hemingway
John Updike
Kurt Vonnegut
Carolyn Ferrell
E. Annie Proulx
T. Coraghessan Boyle
Melissa Bank
John Edgar Wideman
Jim Ray Daniels
Kevin Canty
Nathan Englander
Amy Tan
Z.Z. Packer
Thom Jones
Sarah Vowell

“The Best of Non Required Reading” Series
All-Story Magazine
*If you choose an author not listed above, please clear your choice with me before you begin drafting. ___________________________________________________________________
Below are definitions of the three elements that you can focus on for your analysis.
Characterization - the creation of the image of imaginary persons in drama, narrative poetry, the novel, and the short story. Characterization generates plot and is revealed by actions, speech, thoughts, physical appearance, and the other characters’ thoughts or words about him.
Theme-The idea or point of a story formulated as a generalization. In American literature, several themes are evident which reflect and define our society. The dominant ones might be innocence/experience, life/death, appearance/reality, free will/fate, madness/sanity, love/hate, society/individual, known/unknown. Themes may have a single, instead of a dual nature as well. The theme of a story may be a mid-life crisis, or imagination, or the duality of humankind (contradictions).
Symbolism- A person, place or object which has a meaning in itself
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