Short Stories Research Articles

Drill Hall or Ball Hall? On Pedagogical Implications of the Old Age Motif in Katherine Mansfield’s Short Story “Her First Ball”

<p>This article uses the short story, “Her First Ball,” by Katherine Mansfield to demonstrate how fiction could be an effective tool in the process of deconstructing and transforming the master narrative of old age among secondary students of English as secondary language (ESL). The story not only offers some language points to focus on and some reading skills to develop, but it also provokes some pertinent questions about the image and meaning of old age. Aging themes in “Her First Ball” could serve as an excellent starting point for discussion among adolescent learners about old age. Moreover, such an open-ended approach to Mansfield’s story could potentially lead to a deepened awareness of the social impact of the semantics of old age as well as the transformation of students’ conceptualization of becoming mature and growing old. In addition, this article is devoted to rebuke such a purely didactic approach by presenting the literary text as a tool for complex pedagogical practices.</p>

Lifestyle of Cleft Lip/Palate Patients in Korea Before the Introduction of the Millard Technique.

The authors introduce a short story about the lifestyle of a cleft lip woman in Korea, published in 1936, about 2 decades before Dr Millard operated on his first patient in Korea. A short story entitled "Ugly Thing," written by Yao-hsieh Chu, analyzed by Eonnyeon, a girl born in a rural area with a cleft lip and palate who excelled at household tasks such as sewing. Her forehead was bulging, and her eyes were protruding. She had a low-profile nose with wide nostrils. She had a left unilateral complete primary cleft, including an alveolar cleft. There was midface retraction, accompanied by a relatively prominent chin. Her voice exhibited hypernasality. People often laugh when they see Eonnyeon eating her food, exclaiming, "She's eating like a rabbit!" However, she married a young man who deserted her on their wedding night because of her appearance. Subsequently, she moved to an urban area and found work as a housemaid. One day, she was raped by a middle-aged water delivery man, who then fled. Ten months later, she gave birth to a girl who also had a cleft lip. In a moment of despair, Eonnyeon attempted to smother her baby with a pillow but stopped herself. She resolved to raise her daughter despite the challenges ahead. The mockery directed at her could be viewed as an expression of the latent sadism inherent in human nature. It is remarkable to consider the progress made since Millard performed his first cleft lip surgery in Korea in 1954.

The Transformation of New Sincerity Aesthetics in Zadie Smith’s Grand Union

ABSTRACT This paper proposes that a transformation of the New Sincerity aesthetics has taken place in Zadie Smith’s short fiction. This shift is explored through an analysis of some of the short stories in Smith’s most recent collection, Grand Union, opposite David Foster Wallace’s “Octet”, one of the foundational fictions of the literary New Sincerity. Their respective approaches to authenticity considered, Smith is argued to have partially departed from the other-directed concern with the reader that had shaped Wallace’s outlook on sincerity, and thus to stand at a productive intersection between postmodernist form, the anticipatory disposition of New Sincerity aesthetes, and the unquestioned, unironic embrace of single-entendre values that Wallace prophesied for the twenty-first century.

Educating First-Grade Elementary Students to Soap Handwashing to Enhance COVID-19 Readiness during the New Normal Era

Educating First-Grade Elementary Students to Soap Handwashing to Enhance COVID-19 Readiness during the New Normal Era

Narrative Matters: Ursula Le Guin's writings and adolescence.

Ursula K. Le Guin (1929-2018) was an influential American writer who was a leading literary figure of the 20th century. She is known for her contributions to the science fiction and fantasy genres. She wrote numerous novels, short stories, poems, and essays throughout her career, exploring various themes and pushing the boundaries of speculative fiction. In this article, I discuss Le Guin's writings on the developmental tasks of adolescence. In Le Guin's fiction, she examines how different social and cultural contexts determine patterns of maturation and the acquisition of the roles and responsibilities of adulthood. This article focuses on two novels, A Wizard of Earthsea from the Books of Earthsea (Le Guin, 2018), and Coming of Age in Karhide (Le Guin, 2017).

Same Author, Same Stories, Different Unity: A Close Comparative Reading of a Selection of Stories from Raymond Carver's <i>What We Talk About When We Talk About Love </i>and <i>Beginners</i>

This essay provides a close comparative reading of three stories from Raymond Carver’s short story cycles Beginners and What We Talk About When We Talk About Love. A working definition of short story cycles is developed and referenced in the evaluations of these stories—this definition utilizes literary scholar Gerald Lynch’s work on the sub-genre. The close comparative analyses of “Why Don’t You Dance?”, “One More Thing”, and “Gazebo” reveal that both collections meet the criteria of short story cycles, however, Beginners has a stronger unity that achieved through its shared themes. This supports the argument that Carver’s editor, Gordon Lish, exchanged Carver’s unity of theme in Beginners for a weaker unity of style in What We Talk About.

Narration with Graphics: An AI Generated Story Teller

Storytelling has always been a powerful tool to convey information, connect with people, and make an impact. The aim of our project is to generate story by using the concept of AI and Machine learning .AI generated storytelling has apotential to transform a variety of industries, for marketing and education to entertainment and beyond. By utilizing the capabilities of ML and NLP, stories generated by artificial intelligence can be tailored to meet the specific need of each industry like personalized narratives, interactive and dynamic storytelling, multimodal storytelling, cross domain storytelling. The introduction of GEN-AI can lead to both opportunities and potential challenges among different creator communities which required collaboration from both academic and industry. This topic gathers and analyse vast amount of data from various sources including literature, movies, and social media we are using natural language processing which understand and process human language enabling them to communicate with the user effectively. To use the facial recognition technology, we are using DALL-E, OpenCV which uses model like SVM, decision tree, and knn etc. The objective of the research is to investigate the power of AI software and automating the process of story generation. This exploration involves utilizing various AI models, such as natural language generation (NLG) algorithms, deep learning architectures, and reinforcement learning frameworks, to create compelling and coherent stories across different genres and themes. We're showcasing an innovative system that empowers users to effortlessly create short stories accompanied by relevant images with minimal input. Our final project is accessible through a user-friendly web page interface, allowing individuals to craft their narratives seamlessly. Key Words: Storytelling, Artificial intelligence, Natural language processing, Ai system, Narratives, Automatic, DALL -E, OpenCV.

Analyse de quelques aspects de la tradition orientale dans Fictions et L’aleph de Jorge Luis Borges

This article studies the presence of oriental resonances in some of Jorge Luis Borges’ short stories, and highlights intertexts from the Islamic world, mysticism and Buddhism.

A Corpus-Based Analysis of Word ‘Ghost’ in the Collection of Kenyah Stories

To illustrate the concept of ghosts, this research aimed to explain how they were described in Òma Lóngh and Lebu’ Kulit language, the collection of Dayak Kenyah short stories. This research employed a descriptive qualitative method based on figurative language personification theory. Data analysis is conducted using corpus analysis with the AntConc application. This research concluded that there are four categories that employ personification in relation to the term 'ghost' namely the ghosts act like human, the ghosts being described as dying like humans, ghosts can transform into other forms and ghosts being described as animals. The use of personification in these stories allows readers to relate to and believe in the ghost, enhancing the drama and suspense of the story. The ghosts in this research were only described using personification. Further research might investigate ghosts through different theories to see how their appearance can contribute to certain meanings in the stories.

샤오훙 단편소설에 나타난 비극성 연구

The purpose of this study is to elucidate the tragic elements in the short stories “Wangasujeoksa,” “Gyo,” and “Soseongsamwol” by Xiao Hong. All three works connect their characters to the tragedy of death. This reflects how, despite China's attempts at new progress and innovation through the Xinhai Revolution and the May Fourth Movement in the early 20th century, lower-class women remained in poverty and became victims of an irrational social structure. This study aims to examine the tragedy in Xiao Hong's short stories within the unique historical context of China's modern and contemporary era. In particular, her short stories such as “Wangasujeoksa,” “Gyo,” and “Soseongsamwol” depict characters who, amidst the backdrop of China's transition during the modern and contemporary era, all meet tragic ends, succumbing to poverty, despair, misfortune, and suffering. Therefore, it seeks to explore the tragedy in the context of Chinese modern history by examining Xiao Hong's tragic worldview, her consciousness of tragedy, and the tragic experiences of her characters. If the previous research analyzed the tragedy in Xiao Hong's mid-length novels, this study focuses on the tragedy depicted in Xiao Hong's short stories within the context of modern and contemporary China. This research aims to find ways to study Xiao Hong's short stories from various perspectives.

The quantitative aspect of foregrounding in the classical and contemporary short stories

The article considers the language means of realizing the quantitative aspect of foregrounding in the short stories by Chopin and contemporary flash fiction. The major technique of the quantitative aspect of foregrounding in Chopin's stories is stylistic convergence. Stylistic convergences in her stories normally include extended metaphors and phonetic repetitions. They are usually located in such a strong position as the beginning (in 8 out of the 10 analyzed stories) where the writer describes the personality and appearance of the main character. The use of alliterations makes the stories very poetical. Stylistic convergences in contemporary flash fiction stories are also used in the most foregrounded fragments in the texts, similar to Chopin's stories. The difference lies in the place of convergences: in the analyzed stories they are placed in another strong position, in the ending. Thus, the writers give or suggest their own conclusions about the importance of such values as family, tolerance, and sympathy to other people. The convergences in flash fiction contain two major components-metaphors and syntactic repetitions. Also, the convergences in the analyzed flash fiction stories are smaller in size than in Chopin's texts and include such stylistic devices as play for words, oxymorons.

A STYLISTIC ANALYSIS OF ORDUBADI’S DRAMA “SEVGİLƏR”

M. Said Ordubadi who started his literary career in the beginning of the XX. century was an Azerbaijani contemporary novelist. He always aimed to reach his reader and be didactic with his works. Ordubadi who wrote to be benefit to people, is renowned for historical novels in Azerbaijani literature. But he started with poetry and continued to write in other genres like short stories and novels too. He also wrote some essays for some magazines or newspapers. Some of his dramas were published in little books or journals when he was alive or some of them were published after his death, for the first time in “Əsərləri” in Bakı, 1964. His two dramas published in this book are in verse. And the other four dramas are in prose. “Sevgilər” and “Maral” are the dramas written in verse. This examination is a stylistic analysis of Ordubadi’s poetic drama “Sevgilər”. The instrinsic approach has been taken as the basis for this analysis. According to the available data, none of his dramas has ever been examined in terms of stylistics. So the analysis based on some stylistic devices has aimed to show what sort of personal style Ordubadi tried to use to reach his audience or reader. This examination will provide the readers/audience some concrete examples with reference to how Ordubadi deliberately used stylistic devices in the drama.

Theorizing "Exercise Book" Through the Perspectives of Three Translation Theorists Jakobson, Derrida and Benjamin

A noble translator uncovers a text for the target language readers. An amateur translator, on the other hand, may destroy the prospect, beauty, and liveliness of the text. Therefore, while translating a text, a translator has to turn on his/her utmost possible creative aptitude along with a fanciful imagination of linguistic ability in context. The text “Exercise Book” is a short story, the translation of “Khata”, extracted from the collection of Rabindranath Tagore's short stories titled Rabindranath Tagore: Selected Short Stories, translated by William Radice. This analysis attempts to explore the emotional narrative and discovers if it interprets the subjectivity of Uma’s feelings and thoughts depicted in the short story “Khata” relatively. In addition, this paper is an exertion to understand and scrutinize which category of the translation does this story follow, while translating a text whether it is a sense-for-sense translation or word-for-word translation and whether it is a literary art form or not. For theorizing the translated short story three translation theories by Jakobson, Derrida and Benjamin have been reconnoitered in the paper. Keywords: Translator, creative, sense-for-sense, word-for-word, art, translation

THE PHENOMENON OF EXPERIMENTAL GENRE FORMATIONS IN WORLD LITERATURE

The article explores the genre system of short prose from the end of the XIX - the beginning of the XX centuries. In addition to traditional genres, used by writers (short story, story, short story, pamphlet), experimental genres come into view formations – etudes, arabesques and such non-traditional genres modifications like a sketch. We found out that writers were not afraid to experiment, boldly developed new genres, gave them their own names, put a special meaning in the works.Keywords: genre, author's style, genre formation, imagery, metonymy, nationality, patriotic.

Uma leitura tensiva do suspense em Continuidade dos parques, de Julio Cortázar

This article examines, under the interpretation of tensive semiotics, the effect of sense of suspense in the short story Continuity of Parks, by Julio Cortázar. It takes as a starting point the ascending canonical tensive scheme of suspense, which foresees, as a tensive cipher, a gradual increase in intensity, while the intelligible dimension of the discourse would tend to decrease. Based on the definition of suspense presented by Claude Zilberberg (2011, p. 136) as "the extensive dilation of an intensive expectation", it is defended, in the analysis of this text, a complexification of the canonical tensive scheme, to the extent that the suspense stems from movements of enunciative positions that overlap in the text and that configure a singular tensive path, in which the intensive subdimensions of tempo and tonicity gain strength at the end of the short story, without, however, compromising the exercise of the presence of the cognitive, intelligible dimension of extensity, which remains active in the discursive field, even in the moment of surprise, thus keeping the reader-enunciatee in a state.

'Kilmalough won't know itself': William Trevor's 'The Ballroom of Romance' as Cold War Fiction

Despite the recent attention of historians to the influence of Cold War politics in and on Ireland, literary scholarship has been more reticent when it comes to reading mid-century Irish writing as part of a broader international field of Cold War fiction. While some work has been conducted to situate individual writers, such as Samuel Beckett and John Banville, within an international political milieu, this essay proposes that the Cold War had a much broader impact on Irish writing than has previously been considered. This essay wades into the possibilities of this proposed area of interest through a reading of the Cold War political undercurrents moving within William Trevor’s 1972 short story ‘The Ballroom of Romance’. The story of Bridie’s disappointing evening in the eponymous dancehall has largely been read as an examination of rural disillusionment within an Ireland facing economic and cultural stagnation. Yet American influence suffuses the story. On the one hand, that influence can be felt in the presence of American cultural importation, or ‘soft power’; on the other hand, that influence can be found in the allusions to the shift in Irish economic policy in the mid-twentieth century away from protectionism and towards foreign investment. The most prominent dream amongst the locals who gather at the Ballroom of Romance – the rumours of American investment in a concrete factory in Kilmalough – places Trevor’s story firmly within the politics of global capitalism at the height of the Cold War in the early 1970s. Recognising that ‘Americanisation’ is bound up with Cold War policy affords the opportunity to read the dreams of rural Ireland within the context of global politics – and the failure of these dreams suggests that the reach of Trevor’s criticism need not necessarily be limited to boundaries of county and nation.

AN ANALYSIS OF FEMINIST CRITICISM AND DESCRIPTION OF THE PORTRAYAL OF WOMEN IN THE MULTI-LEVEL AND TRADITIONAL SOCIETY IN THE SELECTED WORK A ROSE FOR EMILY BY WILLIAM FAULKNER

This paper delves into the realm of feminist criticism and explores the portrayal of women in traditional society through a close examination of William Faulkner's renowned short story, "A Rose for Emily." The study aims to shed light on the patriarchal constructs that shaped women's roles and identities during the time the story was set. Drawing upon feminist literary theory, the research analyzes the ways in which Faulkner depicts the female character in "A Rose for Emily." Emily's life becomes a symbol of the oppression and control exerted on women in the patriarchal society depicted in the story. Using textual evidence and critical analysis, the paper explores the themes of oppression, control, and the limited agency granted to women in the traditional Southern society. Furthermore, the research examines the impact of societal norms on the character's choices, relationships, and sense of self. Through a comprehensive examination of the selected work, this research aims to contribute to the existing body of knowledge on feminist criticism and the portrayal of women in traditional societies. By delving into the complexities of gender dynamics and societal expectations, it seeks to foster a deeper understanding of the challenges faced by women in patriarchal societies and the ways in which literature reflects and perpetuates these structures.<p> </p><p><strong> Article visualizations:</strong></p><p><img src="/-counters-/soc/0787/a.php" alt="Hit counter" /></p>

'A Joycean Smutmonger': Echoes of Joyce in Máirtín Ó Cadhain's Rural Modernism

Since its publication, critics of Máirtín Ó Cadhain’s Irish-language masterpiece Cré na Cille (1949; Graveyard Clay) have consistently namechecked James Joyce’s Ulysses (1922), usually for the sole purpose of conveying its perceived difficulty and/or vulgarity. Indeed, Cré na Cille was first refused publication because, in Ó Cadhain’s words, it was too long and too ‘Joycean’. Ó Cadhain himself evidently saw his work as existing in dialogue with his renowned progenitor and during a late lecture revelled in retelling an overheard conversation in which he was described as nothing more than a ‘Joycean smutmonger’. This article goes beyond such surface-level comparisons to unpick how Ó Cadhain proffers a radical portrayal of rural Irish modernity to compare with Joyce’s predominantly urban equivalent. It argues that Ó Cadhain’s characters, like those found in Joyce’s oeuvre, are consistently forced to navigate the forces of tradition and modernity, which existed at the heart of rural Irish society in the mid-twentieth century. This essay will first compare how Ó Cadhain and Joyce treat the predicaments of a young woman preparing for emigration in their respective short stories ‘An Bhliain 1912’ and ‘Eveline’, before moving on to treat Ó Cadhain’s experiments in form and language in Cré na Cille. In particular, it will examine such experimentation in the context of his lasting obsession with Finnegans Wake (1939), as evidenced by his stated belief that he ‘could write a work like Finnegans Wake’. Informed by recent developments in ‘alternative modernities’, this essay attempts to offer a nascent definition of what might be signified by ‘rural modernism’ in an Irish context.

Nature and People Connection in the Three Selected Indonesian Short Stories

Asia tidak pernah bebas dari masalah penindasan, marjinalisasi, dan eksploitasi dalam hal ras, politik, ekonomi, gender, dan lain-lain yang dilakukan oleh orang Barat terhadap orang Timur. Pada abad ke-21, perspektif ini telah meluas ke kekuasaan manusia terhadap alam. Isu kerusakan alam dalam beberapa dekade terakhir merupakan hasil dari eksploitasi manusia atas alam yang melibatkan relasi kuasa dan marjinalisasi kaum tertindas dalam konsep kolonialisme. Kerusakan alam, eksploitasi alam, dan marjinalisasi kaum tertindas dalam konteks Asia ditampilkan dalam tiga cerpen Indonesia yang berjudul Pekik Burung Kedasi di Tepi Kahayan (Crying Cuckoos over the Kahayan), Cenning Rara, dan Pohon Pongo (Pongo’s Caring Tree). Tujuan dari penelitian ini adalah untuk mematahkan persepsi Eropa terhadap Asia bahwa Timur adalah wilayah yang terbelakang dan tidak berbudaya serta tidak mampu memimpin dirinya sendiri dalam isu-isu penyelamatan dunia. Penelitian ini menggunakan penelitian kepustakaan. Melalui pendekatan poskolonial ekokritik, hasil penelitian ini menyatakan bahwa (1) cara pandang Eropa terhadap Asia yang tidak berbudaya, tidak berpendidikan, dan tidak mampu menyuarakan pemikirannya adalah menyesatkan, (2) masyarakat Asia memiliki hubungan yang kuat dengan alam dan dapat disejajarkan dengan Eropa untuk membangun dunia dengan cara menyelamatkan alam.Asia has never been free from issues of oppression, marginalization, and exploitation in terms of race, politics, economy, gender, etc. that Westerners have inflicted on Easterners. In the twenty-first century, this perspective has expanded to human power over nature. The issue of natural destruction in recent decades is the result of human exploitation of nature involves power relations and marginalization of the oppressed in the concept of colonialism. The destruction of nature, natural exploitation, and marginalization of the oppressed in the Asian context is shown in three Indonesian short stories entitled Pekik Burung Kedasi di Tepi Kahayan (Crying Cuckoos over the Kahayan), Cenning Rara, and Pohon Pongo (Pongo’s Caring Tree). The purpose of this paper is to break the European perception of Asia that the East is a backward region with uncultured people who are unable to lead themselves in world-saving issues. This study uses library research. Through the ecocritical postcolonial approach, the results state that (1) the European perspective on Asia as uncultured, uneducated, and unable to voice their thoughts is misleading, (2) Asians have a strong relationship with nature and can be aligned with Europe to build the world through saving nature.

Tennessee Williams’ escapology and the heterotopia of ‘The Mysteries of the Joy Rio’

ABSTRACT Tennessee Williams’ short story ‘The Mysteries of the Joy Rio’ (1954) concerns the eponymous cinema whose darkened upper balconies have long been used for chance sexual encounters. It is a text in which sex, death and escape converge. Employing Foucault’s concept of heterotopia, this article examines Williams’ derelict movie palace as a contestational social space and argues for a political project in Williams’ literary escapism. By presenting heterotopia in fiction, Williams avoids the paradox of institutionalised alterity that clings to Foucault’s examples of real-world sites where norms are suspended. The cinema’s heterotopian dimensions are real to the characters who experience them but not to the larger social forces that oversee institutionalisation in the storyworld, let alone in reality more broadly. The characters’ heterotopian experiences, even as they are artefactually rendered and publicly communicated in the work of art, remain as fiction aloof from institutionalisation. This is what an escapologist such as Williams can offer democracy – little disruptions that it cannot appropriate and that thus keep it open.