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Full Description
Beginning with a brief history and evolution of the short story genre, alongside an overview of the key short story writers, and an explanatory chapter of literary criticism, this book aims to give readers insight into the works by canonical British, Irish, and American authors, including Edgar Allan Poe, James Joyce, Flannery O'Conner, and more. Applying close reading skills and critical literary approaches to four selected short stories in English, this work conducts comparative analyses to reveal the interrelationships between the texts, the authors, the readers, and the sociocultural contexts. Developed and tested in literature classes at The Open University of Hong Kong over several semesters, this book addresses key issues, topics and trends in the short story genre.
Contents
Acknowledgments (Anna Wing-bo Tso)
Foreword (Andrew Parkin)
Preface
Part I
Short Stories: Genre and Literary Criticism
1. A Brief History of the Short Story as a Literary Genre
2. Practical Literary Criticism
Part II
Close Reading for Short Stories
3. Religion and Redemption in O'Connor's "A Good Man Is Hard to Find"
4. Consumerism, Alienation and Digital Dystopia in Bradbury's "The Veldt"
5. Masculinity and Sexuality in Proulx's "Brokeback Mountain"
6. Fantasy and Fan Fiction in Gaiman's "The Problem of Susan"
Part III
Literary and Comparative Analyses of Short Stories
7. Psychoanalysis and the Gothic in Poe's "The Fall of the House of Usher" and Stevenson's "The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde"
8. Irony and Paralysis in Joyce's "Grace" and Trevor's
"Of the Cloth"
9. Civil Rights and Prejudice in Walker's "Everyday Use"
and Smith's "The Embassy of Cambodia"
10. Femininity and Social Pressures in Lessing's "To Room
Nineteen" and Gilman's "The Yellow Wall-Paper"
Afterword
Index
