Survey of American Literature - The American Short Story

2012 ◽  
Author(s):  
Amine Zidouh
Keyword(s):  
American Literature ◽  
Short Story

Ursula K. Le Guin

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Sandra J. Lindow
Keyword(s):  
Science Fiction ◽  
American Literature ◽  
Short Story ◽  
Columbia University ◽  
Contemporary American Literature ◽  
Left Hand ◽  
Radcliffe College ◽  
Neil Gaiman ◽  
Book Award ◽  
National Book

One of the most influential voices in contemporary American literature, Ursula K. Le Guin (b. 1929–d. 2018) began publishing in the 1960s and soon became known for her courageous exploration of ethics, ecology, and diversity using fantastic and futuristic settings. Elevating fantasy and science fiction from pulp-era sword and sorcery and space opera, her fiction explores and condemns chauvinistic traditions of colonialism, nationalism, sexism, and racism. Through her literary approach to genre themes and settings, she inspired not only generations of genre writers but also many mainstream writers who incorporated fantastic elements in their work. Ursula Kroeber was born on in Berkeley, California. Her parents were the Alfred Kroeber, pioneering anthropologist, and Theodora Kroeber, author of Ishi in Two Worlds. She graduated from Radcliffe College in 1951, earned a masters degree from Columbia University in 1952, and married historian Charles Le Guin in 1953. A prolific writer, she published more than sixty books including novels for adults and young adults, picture books, short story collections, critical nonfiction, poetry, screenplays, and works of translation. Genre and mainstream recognition occurred throughout her career. Her first fantasy novel, A Wizard of Earthsea (1968), earned the Boston Globe-Horn Book Award. Her groundbreaking novel The Left Hand of Darkness (1969) won Hugo and Nebula Awards. She was only the second woman to receive both honors for one book. The Farthest Shore (1973) won the National Book Award for Young People’s Literature. The Dispossessed (1974) won Locus, Nebula, and Hugo Awards. Overall, her novels alone received five Locus, four Nebulas, two Hugos, and one World Fantasy Award. In 1989 she accepted the Pilgrim Award for her critical work. In 1994, 1996, and 1997, she earned Tiptree Awards for her exploration of gender through her depiction of androgyny and alternative cultures that privilege nonheteronormative marriage. Le Guin’s lifetime achievement awards recognize her importance in American literature. In 2000, the US Library of Congress named her a Living Legend for her significant contributions to America’s cultural heritage. In 2002, she won the PEN/Malamud Award for excellence in short fiction and the Grand Master Award from the Science Fiction Writers Association. In 2014, she received the National Book Foundation Medal for Distinguished Contribution to American Letters. In his introduction to her National Book Award acceptance speech, author Neil Gaiman describes her as someone who made him not only a better writer but also a better person as a writer.

scholarly journals F. Scott Fitzgerald: Writing Under the Influence of Europe

2009 ◽  
Vol 5 ◽  
Author(s):  
Tim Xu
Keyword(s):  
American Literature ◽  
Short Story ◽  
Ernest Hemingway ◽  
Financial Strain ◽  
Lost Generation ◽  
The Public ◽  
Work Support ◽  
Tender Is The Night ◽  
20Th Century American Literature

As one of the notable figures in 20th Century American literature, F. Scott Fitzgerald has been studied widely by authors, critics, and historians alike. This paper addresses the role of Fitzgerald's time abroad in creating the inspiration for his work as well as Europe's part in catalyzing his eventual decline in the public eye. As a member of the so-called "Lost Generation" of American writers who took up residence in Paris during the 1920s, Fitzgerald was profoundly influenced by his peers, notably Ernest Hemingway. Another guiding factor in Fitzgerald's writing was the presence of Zelda, Fitzgerald's wife, whose mental illness placed both an emotional and financial strain on Fitzgerald. This paper examines the ups and downs of Fitzgerald's life while incorporating the analysis of several of his Europe-inspired works, including his last completed novel Tender is the Night and his famed short story "Babylon Revisited." Fitzgerald's life and work support the claim that Europe was fundamentally a double-edged sword - while Europe provided the thrilling lifestyle that fueled Fitzgerald's writing and widespread notoriety, it also brought about his ultimate disintegration.

scholarly journals Location of Self Identity --A Freudian Psycho-Analysis of the Protagonist in I Want to Know Why

2017 ◽  
Vol 1 (1) ◽  
pp. 98
Author(s):  
Gao Jing ◽  
Song Wei
Keyword(s):  
Short Stories ◽  
American Literature ◽  
Short Story ◽  
Great Influence ◽  
Transitional Period ◽  
Writing Style ◽  
Contemporary American Literature ◽  
Sherwood Anderson ◽  
Self Identity ◽  
Spiritual World

Sherwood Anderson plays a signifcant role and regards as a signpost in the transitional period contemporary American literature. Moreover, Anderson's writing style exerts a great influence on other writers like Faulkner and Hemingway. Sherwood Anderson has been called the frst of America's "psychological writers" because he frst explored the motivations and frustrations of his fictional characters in terms of Sigmund Freud's theories of psychology. I Want to Know Why is one of his famous short story from his short stories collections The Triumph of the Egg which is one of his most representative works. The purpose of this thesis is to analyze the unnamed frst-person narrator, aged ffteen at the time of the events with Freud's theory of three structures of personality. With the help of Freud's psyoanalysis, this essay mainly probes into the inner spiritual world of the narrator in order to locate his own personality.

scholarly journals The Tastes from Portugal: Food as Remembrance in Portuguese American Literature

2008 ◽  
Vol 31 (2) ◽  
pp. 126-152
Author(s):  
Reinaldo Silva
Keyword(s):  
Native Americans ◽  
New England ◽  
American Literature ◽  
Short Story ◽  
Herman Melville ◽  
Moby Dick ◽  
Ethnic Food ◽  
Piazza Tales

Contemporary Portuguese American literature written by Thomas Braga (1943-), Frank Gaspar (1946-), and Katherine Vaz (1955-) share a profusion of topics - with ethnic food being, perhaps, the most representative one. What these writers have in common is that their roots can be traced to Portugal's Atlantic islands - the Azores - and not to continental Portugal. They are native Americans and write in English, though their characters and themes are Portuguese American. Some of them lived close to the former New England whaling and fishing centers of New Bedford and Nantucket, which Herman Melville has immortalized in Moby-Dick and in his short story, “The 'Gees,” in The Piazza Tales. These seaports were renowned worldwide and eventually attracted Azorean harpooners. The Azorean background of Thomas Braga and Frank Gaspar helps us to understand why fish and seafood feature so extensively in their writings instead of dishes containing meat as is the case in the fiction of Katherine Vaz.

Fighting the Fear: Everyday Terror in the American Short Story Collection after 9/11 A Study of Jennifer Egan’s A Visit from the Goon Squad and Elizabeth Strout’s Olive Kitteridge

2016 ◽  
Vol 3 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Rae-Lee Kruger
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
American Literature ◽  
Short Story ◽  
The United States ◽  
Fundamental Aspect ◽  
Short Story Collection ◽  
Self Reflection ◽  
Cultural Form ◽  
Public Response ◽  
Story Collection

Jennifer Egan’s A Visit from the Goon Squad and Elizabeth Strout’s Olive Kitteridge represent the emphatic force that can be created within a short story collection and each contain at their core what has become a fundamental aspect of American literature since September 2001: terror. In A Visit from the Goon Squad and Olive Kitteridge, characters feel and attempt to cope with terror in their everyday lives. Both Egan and Strout contextualize individual terror against the broader national and cultural form felt by the United States after the events of 9/11. The presence of the void left by the Twin Towers is a potent symbol of terror within each collection, paralleling the characters’ experiences with that of post-9/11 America while highlighting the existence of everyday terror and providing a lens for character self-reflection. This essay focusses on two categories of terror that figure into both collections, terror of the unknown and terror of being alone, and how strategies employed by Egan’s and Strout’s characters to cope with this terror correspond to the American public response to the wider terror instilled by 9/11.

Antiquarian Entrepreneurs: Mounds and Meaning in the Jacksonian Era

Relic Hunters ◽  
2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
James E. Snead
Keyword(s):  
American Literature ◽  
Short Story ◽  
Western Country ◽  
Indian Children ◽  
Jacksonian Era ◽  
Institutional Capital ◽  
Place Of Origin ◽  
The Subject ◽  
The Relationship ◽  
William Cullen

In his 1838 Peter Pilgrim, or a Rambler’s Recollections, Robert Bird noted the abundant evidence for ancient human activity in the caverns of the western country, with the associated ironies of modern exploitation: . . . it is quite plain that the Mammoth Cave was once the dwelling-place of man—of a race of the Anakim, as some will have it, whose bones were disinterred in the vestibule . . . The tribe has vanished, and their bones (to what base uses we may return!) converted into gunpowder, have been employed to wing many a death against their warring descendants. . . . Although he included a garbled account of the Caney Branch mummies— “petrified ancients”—Bird did not mention the Kentucky Mummy herself. Thus her transformation over twenty-odd years into an archaeological icon, and then into institutional capital, also effectively obscured the intimate connection between those remains and their place of origin. Indeed, refractions of the discovery can be found in the broader American literature of the 1830s. William Cullen Bryant’s 1832 short story “The Skeleton in the Cave” adapts literary gothic imagery to a distinctively American setting, which features caverns and bones. Over time, however, the Kentucky Mummy reappeared in lore specific to Mammoth Cave itself. Visitors saw sites associated with the Mummy, variously along the “Gothic Avenue” or in the “Haunted Chamber.” A complex web of tales developed of bodies excavated, reburied, or lost, of Indian children long dead but perfectly preserved. Tours stopped at a niche associated with the Mummy and took “time for reverie. It cost me no coaxing to have mine,” wrote Nathaniel Parker Willis; “of all the ladies of past ages I doubt whether there is one who is the subject of a more perpetual series of unwritten poems.” The 1840s invention of traditions concerning the Kentucky Mummy reflects a deepening of the relationship between settlers and the western landscape, which with time and familiarity had evolved from a featureless wilderness into a place with history and meaning.

scholarly journals “Ningún lugar sagrado” de Rodrigo Rey Rosa: una ficción paranoica desde la diáspora centroamericana

Neophilologus ◽  
2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Marileen La Haije
Keyword(s):  
American Literature ◽  
Short Story ◽  
Central American ◽  
Literary Texts ◽  
General Tendency ◽  
Unreliable Narrator ◽  
Central American Literature ◽  
Social Discourses ◽  
Narrative Techniques ◽  
The Voice

AbstractThis paper analyzes “Ningún lugar sagrado” (1998) by the Guatemalan writer Rodrigo Rey Rosa as a ‘ficción paranoica’ (“La ficción paranoica”, Clarín, 10 de octubre de 1991; Blanco nocturno, Anagrama, Barcelona, 2010). I will explain that Rey Rosa’s short story does not include univocal clues to identify the protagonist as an unreliable narrator whose overinterpretations give rise to a misrepresentation of the facts. According to my reading of “Ningún lugar sagrado”, the paranoiac features of the main character contribute to the ambiguity of the text that, in fact, never explicitly confirms or discredits his persecutory ideas. Following this line of argument, I suggest that Rey Rosa’s short story narrates an “imaginario de amenaza” (“La ficción paranoica”, Clarín, 10 de octubre de 1991) that, alluding to the climate of repression, intrigues and complicities in postwar Guatemala, generates paranoia –including that of the reader. “Ningún lugar sagrado” points to a more general tendency in recent Central American literature that, from the realm of fiction, highlights the widespread nature of paranoia in the region. Unlike social discourses that discuss the topic, these literary texts make use of narrative techniques that do not necessarily respond to a referential notion of truth (including hyperboles, digressions, irony and narrative ambiguity), when constructing the voice of a paranoiac character. According to my perspective, such narrative techniques lend themselves especially to capturing the alienating dimensions of violence in Central America where paranoia, rather than being a question of truth or exaggeration, constitutes a survival strategy.

scholarly journals O pensamento liminar como uma resposta à colonialidade do poder em La mano en la tierra, de Josefina Plá

2019 ◽  
Vol 24 (1) ◽  
pp. 65
Author(s):  
Leoné Astride Barzotto
Keyword(s):  
American Literature ◽  
Latin American ◽  
Short Story ◽  
Latin American Literature ◽  
The South ◽  
Post Colonial ◽  
The North ◽  
Post Colonialism ◽  
Border Thinking

Resumo: Este artigo tem a intenção de fazer um estudo da literatura latino-americana pela perspectiva pós-colonial como representação de uma dada realidade, para demonstrar que o conceito de “Pensamento Liminar” (MIGNOLO, 2003) é uma resposta potencial do Hemisfério Sul às novas investidas de domínio percebidas pela descrição do conceito de “Colonialidade do Poder” (QUIJANO, 2005), advindas do Hemisfério Norte. Neste contexto, analisarei ambos os conceitos e as estratégias pós-coloniais pertinentes à esta análise, adentrando o conto La mano en la tierra (2002), da escritora Josefina Plá, a fim de averiguar o papel da mulher local, neste caso Ursula, uma indígena Guarani paraguaia, e sua relevância na narrativa e nas questões de gênero que implicam parcela deste estudo.Palavras-chave: pensamento liminar; colonialidade do poder; pós-colonialismo; literatura latino-americana; gênero.Abstract: This paper aims to develop a study on the Latin American Literature through the post-colonial perspective as a representation of a certain reality, to demonstrate that the concept of “Border Thinking” (MIGNOLO, 2003) is a potential answer from the South Hemisphere towards the new control quests which are perceived through the concept of “Coloniality of Power” (QUIJANO, 2005), from the North Hemisphere. Within this context, I will analyze both concepts and also the post-colonial strategies that connect to it, investing in the short story La mano en la tierra (2002), written by Josefina Plá, to investigate the role of the local woman, in this case Ursula, a Guarani indigenous lady from Paraguay, and her relevance in the narrative as well as in the gender debate which implies part of this study.Keywords: border thinking; coloniality of power; post colonialism; Latin American literature; gender.

scholarly journals Centennial reflections on Steinbeck's reputation in Slovenia

2002 ◽  
Vol 35 (1-2) ◽  
pp. 45-55
Author(s):  
Danica Čerče
Keyword(s):  
American Literature ◽  
Short Story ◽  
Significant Contribution ◽  
Historical Context ◽  
The United States ◽  
Pulitzer Prize ◽  
Grapes Of Wrath ◽  
Relevant Today ◽  
New Information ◽  
Sense Of Justice

Since the late 1920s and his first novel, Cup of Gold (1929), there has been little consensus about John Steinbeck's work, and he has often been praised or dismissed for the wrong reasons. In the wake of the novels with the sweeping reach and social consciousness of In Dubious Battle (1936), Of Mice and Men (1937), and The Grapes of Wrath (1939), and despite the prodigious and startlingly diverse output of his career, Steinbeck was generally regarded as one of America's foremost engaged artists. However, the truth is that be was as much a postmodernist and a modernist, as a traditional proletarian writer. And though be made a significant contribution to the perception of the problems of his time by writing with empathy, clarity and a strong sense of justice about the downtrodden, the exploited, and the defenseless, which contributed to his immense public success, Steinbeck's novels lose none of their richness and power when removed from their historical context. With the human dilemmas on many levels of personal, philosophical, and socio-economic existence, and their deep humanistic, philosophical and ecological message, conveyed through numerous Biblical, Arthurian, and literary allusions, his works are as relevant today as they were when they were written.Appropriate enough, and given that this year marks the centennial of John Steinbeck's birth, celebrated with a year-long series of events taking place throughout the United States and paying tribute to the winner of the 0. Henry Short Story Prize, the Pulitzer Prize, and the Nobel Prize for Literature by examining his legacy in American literature, film, theatre and journalism, and providing new information about the enduring value of his writing, this paper aims to capture the writer's reputation in Slovenia. The plan is to briefly analyse the most illustrative examples of Steinbeck criticism accompanying Slovene publications of his works; then to loosen the hold of deeply entrenched positions of Slovene reviewers, and to highlight the importance of considering Steinbeck's texts from new, insightful and politically unbiased perspectives of contemporary critical engagement. And last but not least, this discussion might hopefully induce Slovene publishers to new printings and translations of Steinbeck's works.

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