Fables of the Human Condition
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Dr. Bordelon's The Short Story: On Campus |
Fables of the Human Condition Titles, Page Numbers and date published Introduction to Assignment #3 I guess it's best to start with a couple of definitions: a fable is short story which employs fantastic, surreal or otherwise extra-ordinary events to illustrate a truth; the human condition? Well . . . that's a bit more difficult, which is why the writers in this section had to resort to fables. I've taken some liberties here: these stories aren't usually categorized as fables, yet I think examining them with this in mind broadens their meaning and highlights their themes. The definition of fable noted above seems to fit the stories "Gimpel the Fool" and "Angel Levine" from last week, and throughout the semester, you'll come across fabulistic qualities in many stories. But there is a distinct difference between Singer's and Malamud's use of the fabulism: their work uses the supernatural, or spiritual realm, while most fables, including the stories in this assignment, are secular ("A Very Old Man" has religious themes, but its message is secular). This is fitting given the range of moral arguments in these stories: in the previous assignment, the message was primarily religious; here, as the assignment title suggests, it is more generally a look at mankind. In these stories, you'll meet an assortment of characters, but they aren't drawn as finely as, say, Sammy in "A&P" or Gimpel in "Gimpel the Fool." While we may get glimpses into their lives, in fables the character is subordinate to the message, truth, or moral the writer is interested in. This is a very different approach to modern short stories, which are usually grounded in life-like characters. In fables, the appurtenances of fiction – character, plot, symbols – are window dressing: they get the reader hooked and make the message memorable. Instead of just telling children "only by steady application of work will you prosper," parents read "The Tortoise and Hare" to them (though nowadays most would pop a DVD into a player). For adults, the messages are a bit more complex, and in modern fables, they are often difficult to pin down. Thus, the stories in this section do contain messages, but, like life itself, they are seldom clear-cut and defined. Instead of tidy moral lessons, they offer enigmatic observations that expose the dark sides of human existence. To understand these stories it helps to know another term bandied about by literary critics, especially when citing the works of contemporary Latin American writers. That term is Magical Realism: fiction that treats the fantastic as the commonplace – the magic as the real. Thus the plague of crabs which opens "A Very Old Man" is met not with astonishment, but with a resigned air of acceptance. The exaggerated quality of Magical Realism is connected to fables in its desire to stretch the limits of what readers will take as "real." Just as we suspend disbelief when reading about two children lost in the woods stumbling upon a gingerbread house, we suspend disbelief when confronted with the improbable scenes in these stories. In general, fables employ exaggeration to jar the reader into understanding. By juxtaposing the fantastic with the familiar, they allow the reader to make connections, draw inferences and otherwise reveal meanings that, while readily apparent, are often lost in the hubbub of modern life, or more likely, buried under layers of human rationalization and denial. Thus, while an ancient form (Aesop, one of the earliest writers of fables, was a Greek slave), they probe the depths of that very modern preoccupation, the unconscious. Modern fables use some of the elements of allegory; that is, they are extended metaphors which work on multiple levels of meaning: on one level, the very old man in Marquez's story is an angel, but he is also a metaphor for the plight of the Other in society, the celebrity culture we live in today, the plight of the artist in society, etc. But unlike older forms of allegory, the connections between metaphor and meaning, as shown in the example of Marquez, are not clear. For instance, in Bunyan's Pilgrim's Progress (1678-84), the city where an honest Christian pilgrim can be led astray is named "Vanity Fair," which is an obvious warning on the dangers of vanity (though given the current popularity of the magazine Vanity Fair, it’s clear that the world has changed a bit). The more modern stories in this assignment are wide ranging, but they each share an interest in subtly exposing some of the hypocrisies and blind spots of contemporary life, including the frission between group psychology and violence, the thin layer of civility covering the brute within us all, the connections between capitalism and cruelty, and especially the way the human mind reacts to, adjusts, justifies, or ignores these types of realizations. Questions to mull over as you interpret the story 1. Who is the story's narrator and what role or function does he or she serve? What view does he or she take on the proceedings of the story? Surprise? Acceptance? _____? How does the narrator's tone affect our interpretation of the story? "The Lottery" No pre-questions for this one: just hold on to your seat. We'll watch this video in class: Without Sanctuary. "The Ones Who Walk Away from Omelas" 1. Who is this narrator?
Group Questions Question #1 ("Very Old") Question #2 ("Very Old") Question #3 ("Very Old") Question #4 ("Very Old") Question #1 ("The Lottery") Question #2 ("The Lottery") Question #3 ("The Ones" Question #4 ("The Ones") Question #5 © 2008 David Bordelon
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