what is the difference between poems, short stories, and novels?

What is the difference between poems, short stories, and novels?

Poems/short stories/ novels

• Short stories resemble poems—both tend to rely on compression rather than expansion

• Short fiction –’the art of the glimpse’

• Short stories tell much less than novels do: they demand that you understand and evaluate characters on the basis of just a few details and events

What are the elements of short fiction?

• Plot and structure

• Point of view

• Characterization

• Setting

• Imagery

• Language

• Theme

Plot and structure

• Plot – What will happen next?• Williams’s story – Is the girl concealing an

infected throat?• Structure: ABCDE formula• Action• Background• Development –takes the reader a step closer to the

main event• Climax- peak moment of drama• Ending –may relate to the beginning

Point of view

• A story may be told from a particular character’s perspective or point of view

• First person – pronoun I• The narrator may be psychologically complex• How objective does the narrator seem in depicting

other people and events?• How reasonable do the narrator’s judgments

seem?

Point of view

• Omniscient narrator – ‘all-knowing’

• A seemingly all-knowing, objective voice

• Describe Welty’s, Kafka’s, Achebe’s,Mhafouz’s,Chekhov’s, and Williams’s narrative voice

• Free indirect style – a narrator otherwise omniscient conveys a particular character’s viewpoint

Characters

• You may want to judge characters according to how easily you can identify with them

• Reading a short story involves relating its characters to one another

• Protagonist – when a particular character seems to be the story’s focus

• Antagonist – in conflict with the protagonist

Setting and imagery

• The characters are located in a particular place or setting

• Short stories vary in the precision with which they identify their settings

• Short stories use imagery to convey meaning –they appear in the form of metaphors or other figures of speech

Language

• Title --usually you have to read a story all the way through before you can sense fully how its title applies

• Predominant style – not all stories have a uniform style. Some feature various tones, dialects, vocabularies, and levels of formality

• Dialogue – by reporting various things, characters may provide you with necessary background for the plot

Theme

• Theme --The main claim a work of art seems to make

• An assertion, proposition, or statement rather than a single word

• An observation or a recommendation

• What are the themes of Welty’s Williams’s, and Chekhov’s stories?