Five great short stories

Aims

This course aims to:

• develop participants’ confidence in close reading and discussing short fiction
• explore how historical context and literary theory can deepen our understanding of stories and introduce you to the history of the short story as a form
• encourage thoughtful, engaged responses to literature and the sharing of interpretations among class members

Course content

The short story is one of literature’s most concentrated and inventive forms. In just a few pages, writers can evoke entire worlds, capture a revelatory moment in a character’s life or leave us with an unsettling question that lingers long after the final line. Because of its brevity and intensity, the form lends itself to experimentation: short stories are often marked by shifts in perspective, ambiguous endings and intense, condensed symbolism. Throughout this course, we will explore how different authors exploit the possibilities of the form to surprise, disturb, delight, and provoke readers and you will be encouraged to develop your own interpretations of what we read.

From M.R. James’ tale of terror, featuring the scariest bed-linen in literary history and first recounted by candle-light in Cambridge, to Ted Chiang’s philosophical 21st century sci-fi, you will think about how short stories respond to the social and cultural climates in which they were written. From anxieties about modernity and changing social roles to the psychology of fear and the uncanny, the short story captures tensions in a short burst of intense communication. Close reading will be at the heart of our week’s work together, but we will also think about broader questions: what makes a story memorable? How do writers create a sense of atmosphere, a specific setting or depth of character in a small space? As you develop your understanding of great short stories of the past, we will also think about how the short story is faring in today’s literary culture. In an age marked by brevity of communication on social media, how short do short stories have to be to engage our fleeting attention?

What to expect on this course

The course will be taught through a series of short talks each day, with introductions to key ideas and critical approaches to the reading. We will then move into a seminar structure where contributions and discussions will be encouraged. Your enjoyment of the course will be enhanced if you have read the stories in advance and come ready to discuss them. For each day there is one key story to read and another suggested story which will provide additional contrast or context.

Course sessions

1. Tales of terror and wonder: we will begin with an introduction to the history of the short story form, with a particular focus on the tale by Cambridge’s master of the ghost story, 
   
   Text: M. R. James ‘”Oh, Whistle and I’ll Come to You My Lad”’ (additional story: EA Poe ‘The Tell-Tale Heart’)
   
    
2. Epiphanies: Short stories often work towards a moment of revelation or ‘epiphany’, where the truth of a situation or a character’s realisation of something about themselves or someone else becomes suddenly clear. 
   
   Text: Anton Chekov, ‘The Lady with the Dog’ (additional story: James Joyce, ‘Araby’)
   
    
3. Symbolism: We’ll think about the importance of symbolism to the short story: in the condensed space of a short story, details must ‘speak’ and ordinary objects can take on symbolic importance.
   
   Text: Katherine Mansfield, ‘The Garden Party’ (Additional story: DH Lawence ‘Odour of Chrysanthemums’)
   
    
4. Secrets: This session will focus on plot and revelation, looking at the ways short stories can play with readers’ expectations and pace their narratives so that at the end of a story we might find ourselves returning to the beginning to understand what we missed on first reading.
   
   Text: Shirley Jackson ‘The Lottery’ (Additional story: Toni Morrison ‘Recitatif’)
   
    
5. Voice: Our final story (the longest we’ll look at) makes use of second person and so creates a distinctive and effective narrative address. We’ll think back through the stories we’ve read to compare and contrast how they have ‘spoken’ to use and think about the kinds of narrators created by innovative short story writers.
   
   Text: Ted Chiang, ‘The Story of Your Life’ (Additional Story: Jamil Jan Kochai, ‘The Haunting of Hajji Hotak’)

Learning outcomes

As a result of the course, you will gain a greater understanding of the subject and you should be able to:

• demonstrate close reading skills by analysing key features of short stories such as narrative voice, structure, symbolism, and atmosphere.
• explain how literary and historical contexts shape interpretation, drawing connections between the stories and the cultural moments in which they were written.
• discuss and evaluate different critical interpretations of short fiction, articulating your own ideas clearly in conversation with others.

Required reading

All the short stories will be made available to you in pdf form via the VLE before the course begins. You should read all of the five key stories before the classes and reading the ‘additional’ stories will extend and deepen your understanding of the form.