Fiction for the Woman of To-day: The Modern Short Story in Eve

Mapping Intimacies ◽

10.3366/edinburgh/9781474461085.003.0008 ◽

2020 ◽

pp. 150-168

Author(s):

Alice Wood

Keyword(s):

Short Story ◽

Short Fiction ◽

Elizabeth Bowen ◽

Traditional Values ◽

Heterosexual Relationships ◽

Art Exhibitions ◽

Radclyffe Hall ◽

New Models ◽

New Ideas ◽

Gossip Columns

This chapter explores short fiction published in Eve, later Eve: The Lady’s Pictorial, a magazine directed to ‘the woman of to-day and tomorrow’ in print between 1921-29. This elite English women’s paper was avowedly modern in outlook - debating new social roles for women, new ideas about psychology and sexuality, changing relations between the sexes and modernist aesthetics - at the same time as upholding traditional values such as respect for class hierarchy and marriage within its routine content of society gossip columns, fashion pages, travel writing and reviews of new books, art exhibitions and theatre. This chapter shows how the tension between modernity and convention was also reflected in the magazine’s short stories, which ranged from formulaic and conservative plots to experimental and subversive narratives. It reads stories by familiar and forgotten authors, including Elizabeth Bowen, Joyce Anstruther, Marthe Troly-Curtin and Radclyffe Hall, that, in more or less radical ways, probed new models of femininity and new models for heterosexual relationships.

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POLIVARIABILITY OF THE BASTARD MOTIF IN THE SHORT STORIES BY GUY DE MAUPASSANT: CHARACTER IN SEARCH OF SELF-IDENTIFICATION

LITERARY PROCESS methodology names trends ◽

10.28925/2412-2475.2018.11.2027 ◽

2018 ◽

pp. 20-27

Author(s):

Oksana Galchuk

Keyword(s):

Short Stories ◽

Short Story ◽

Social Institutions ◽

Point Of View ◽

Guy De Maupassant ◽

Traditional Values ◽

The Social ◽

Role Of It ◽

Structural Methods

The theme of illegitimacy Guy de Maupassant evolved in his works this article perceives as one of the factors of the author’s concept of a person and the plane of intersection of the most typical motifs of his short stories. The study of the author’s concept of a person through the prism of polivariability of the motif of a bastard is relevant in today’s revision of traditional values, transformation of the usual social institutions and search for identities, etc. The purpose of the study is to give a definition to the existence specifics of the bastard motif in the Maupassant’s short stories by using historical and literary, comparative, structural methods of analysis as dominant. To do this, I analyze the content, variability and the role of this motive in the formation of the Maupassant’s concept of a person, the author’s innovations in its interpretation from the point of view of literary diachrony. Maupassant interprets the bastard motif in the social, psychological and metaphorical-symbolic sense. For the short stories with the presentation of this motif, I suggest the typology based on the role of it in the structure of the work and the ideological and thematic content: the short stories with a motif-fragment, the ones with the bastard’s leitmotif and the group where the bastard motif becomes a central theme. The Maupassant’s interpretation of the bastard motif combines the general tendencies of its existence in the world’s literary tradition and individual reading. The latter is the result of the author’s understanding of the relevant for the era issues: the transformation of the family model, the interest in the theory of heredity, the strengthening of atheistic sentiments, the growth of frustration in the system of traditional social and moral values etc. This study sets the ground for a prospective analysis of the evolution the bastard motif in the short-story collections of different years or a comparative study of the motif in short stories and novels by Maupassant.

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‘Forlorn on the Fringe of Life’: Exploring Working-Class Childhood in Katherine Mansfield’s Short Stories

English Journal of the English Association ◽

10.1093/english/efab022 ◽

2022 ◽

Author(s):

Argha Kumar Banerjee

Keyword(s):

Short Stories ◽

Working Class ◽

Short Story ◽

Short Fiction ◽

Verbal Abuse ◽

The Other ◽

Parental Rejection ◽

Narrative Strategies ◽

Childhood Experiences ◽

The One

Abstract In Katherine Mansfield’s short story ‘Life of Ma Parker’, the old, widowed charwoman is plagued by ‘unbearable’ thoughts of her deceased grandson Lennie: ‘Why did he have to suffer so?’ Lennie’s unfortunate death in the story is not a solitary instance of tragic portrayal of working-class childhood in Mansfield’s short fiction. In several of her tales she empathetically explores the marginalized existence of such children, occasionally juxtaposing their deplorable existence with their elite counterparts’. From social exclusion, child labour, parental rejection, infant and child mortality on the one hand to physical and verbal abuse, bullying in the school and appalling living conditions on the other; Mansfield's exploration of the working-class childhood in her short fiction is not only psychologically complex but sociologically significant. Focusing on the relevant short stories in her oeuvre, this brief analysis intends to closely examine such depictions of marginalized childhood experiences, particularly in light of the oppressive societal conditions that validate their repressive alienation and sufferings. Tracing various biographical circumstances that may have fostered Mansfield’s deep empathy with the children’s’ predicament, this analysis also draws attention to her subtle oblique narrative strategies that effectively represent the plight of working-class children in a convincing and an ingeniously nuanced manner.

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‘The Magazine Short Story and the Real Short Story’: Consuming Fiction in the Feminist Weekly Time and Tide

Women's Periodicals and Print Culture in Britain, 1918-1939 ◽

10.3366/edinburgh/9781474412537.003.0007 ◽

2018 ◽

Author(s):

Catherine Clay

Keyword(s):

Short Stories ◽

Interwar Period ◽

Short Story ◽

Short Fiction ◽

Affect Theory ◽

Basic Unit ◽

Women Readers ◽

Literary Marketplace ◽

Periodical Studies ◽

The Subject

This chapter examines the short fiction content of the feminist weekly Time and Tide alongside readers’ letters printed in the periodical’s correspondence columns. A basic unit of magazine production the short story is also ‘definitional to modernism’ (Armstrong 2005: 52), and during the interwar period its status as commodity or art became the subject of increasing scrutiny and debate. Drawing on examples from amateur writers and well-known figures such as E. M. Delafield, the chapter explores how Time and Tide negotiated readers’ expectations for short fiction amongst its core target audience of women readers. Building on Fionnuala Dillane’s application of affect theory to periodical studies (2016), the chapter uses her concept of ‘discursive disruption’ to consider moments of conflict between Time and Tide and its readers over the short stories it published as moments of opportunity for the periodical to expand its scope, readership and brow, and renegotiate its position in the literary marketplace.

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‘Satyre upon a Saxaphone’: Fitzgerald and Music

F. Scott Fitzgerald's Short Fiction ◽

10.3366/edinburgh/9781474424684.003.0004 ◽

2019 ◽

pp. 85-113

Author(s):

Jade Broughton Adams

Keyword(s):

African American ◽

Popular Culture ◽

Short Story ◽

Short Fiction ◽

Musical Culture ◽

Tin Pan Alley ◽

Popular Songs ◽

Popular Magazine

This chapter demonstrates how Fitzgerald invokes music in his short fiction, which heavily features jazz. Fitzgerald shows how white artists such as the Castles and Irving Berlin often profited from the appropriation of African American musical culture such as jazz and blues. Fitzgerald’s explorations of Tin Pan Alley’s output demonstrate that a more malleable treatment of established formulae can yield valuable results. This book draws parallels between Irving Berlin’s subversion of tired Tin Pan Alley formulae, and Fitzgerald’s own manipulations of the popular magazine short story genre. In his later use of music, Fitzgerald explores the limitations of language, the role of the artist in society, and questions the value of popular culture itself. He satirises the conventions of popular songs, and subtly parodies short story conventions (particularly romantic short story conventions). Fitzgerald identifies with the songwriter, whose role is to provoke emotion and forge an intimacy with the consumer, much like the commercial short storyist. By positioning Fitzgerald’s thematic and character repetitions and concessions to the magazine format as deliberate rather than desperate, this chapter suggests that his self-parody is a conscious aesthetic decision in the process of exploring the identity of the authentic literary craftsman, dancer, or musician.

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Horizon Magazine and the Wartime Short Story, 1940–1945

10.3366/edinburgh/9781474461085.003.0012 ◽

2020 ◽

pp. 229-249

Author(s):

Ann-Marie Einhaus

Keyword(s):

Short Stories ◽

Literary Criticism ◽

Short Story ◽

Short Fiction ◽

Editorial Policy ◽

Filler Material ◽

Critical Factors ◽

Aesthetic Judgement

Cyril Connolly’s wartime periodical venture Horizon is commonly regarded as one of the most significant British literary publications in this period alongside John Lehmann’s New Writing series. Connolly’s specialism was literary criticism and cultural commentary, but the magazine also prided itself in offering readers exciting new (and some older) works of poetry and fiction. Given the stature of the magazine, this chapter investigates whether Horizon had a noticeable impact on the wartime short story in Britain, and if so, what this impact might have been. It outlines an editorial policy that, with few exceptions, regarded short fiction as filler material and chose short stories based on a combination of practical and critical factors, determined by availability and convenience as much as by aesthetic judgement.

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Frame, Janet (1924–2004)

Routledge Encyclopedia of Modernism ◽

10.4324/9781135000356-rem648-1 ◽

2018 ◽

Author(s):

Christy Pottroff

Keyword(s):

New Zealand ◽

Suicide Attempt ◽

Short Story ◽

Short Fiction ◽

Magical Realism ◽

Time Frame ◽

Lunatic Asylum ◽

Personal History ◽

Critical Attention ◽

Janet Frame

Janet Frame was a celebrated New Zealand author with a prolific literary career and a dramatic personal history. Mirroring Frame’s own life, her writing frequently addresses poverty, marginalization, and the artist’s struggle in a conformist society. Both her prose and her poetry combine elements of modernism with magical realism. After a suicide attempt at university, she was misdiagnosed with schizophrenia and spent eight years in mental hospitals in New Zealand, including the notorious Seacliff Lunatic Asylum, where she received numerous electroshock treatments. In 1952, while Frame was in the asylum, New Zealand’s Caxton Press published her collection of short fiction entitled The Lagoon and Other Stories, which was awarded a prestigious national literary prize, the Hubert Church Prose Award. At the time, Frame was scheduled to have a lobotomy—until hospital officials discovered that she had won the award. In total, Frame was the author of twelve novels, four short story collections, one book of poetry, and three volumes of autobiography. She received many awards and honors, and her writing has garnered numerous literary prizes and much critical attention.

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Thematic Preoccupation of Nigerian Literature: A Critical Approach

English Linguistics Research ◽

10.5430/elr.v6n3p22 ◽

2017 ◽

Vol 6 (3) ◽

pp. 22

Author(s):

Adetuyi, Chris Ajibade

Keyword(s):

Short Story ◽

Human Condition ◽

Value Systems ◽

Traditional Values ◽

Critical Approach ◽

Human Environment ◽

The Past ◽

Public Property ◽

Economic Exploitation ◽

Nigerian Literature

Nigerian literature takes "matter" from the realities of Nigerian living conditions and value systems in the past and present. In the Nigerian society the writer, be it a novelist, dramatist or poet is a sensitive "questioner" and reformer; as all literature in a way is criticism of the human condition obtainable in the society it mirrors. The writer often cannot help exposing the bad and the ugly in man and society. Thus much of Nigerian literature is a deploration of the harsh and inhuman condition in which the majority of Nigerians live in i.e. poverty, misery, political oppression, economic exploitation, excesses of the affluent, liquidation of humane Nigerian traditional values, and all forms of injustices which seem to be the lot of a large majority in most Nigerian societies.In drama, novel, poetry or short - story, the writer's dialogue with his physical and human environment comes out as a mirror in which his people and society can see what they look like. Every image painted by a skillful artist is expressed or put into writing / print, becomes public property and leaves itself open for evaluation by those who read and understand the language and expression. There is therefore a need to identify the thematic preoccupation of Nigeria literature which is the focus of this paper with a view to identifying their peculiarities with textual references.

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Introduction

10.3366/edinburgh/9781474461085.003.0001 ◽

2020 ◽

pp. 1-24

Author(s):

Elke D’hoker ◽

Chris Mourant

Keyword(s):

Nineteenth Century ◽

Short Story ◽

Short Fiction ◽

Literary Form ◽

Periodical Studies ◽

The Status ◽

Recent Developments ◽

Material Turn ◽

And Function ◽

The Impact

This chapter provides an overview of the methodological and historical frames that inform the book’s analysis of the manifold interactions between the short story and British magazine culture, from 1880 to 1950. It discusses the material turn in short fiction studies which has led to a better understanding of the impact of publication contexts on the production, reception and development of the short story. This holds true in particular for the role magazines played in the emergence of the modern short story as a specific and successful literary form in the final decades of the nineteenth century. The chapter also presents an overview of recent developments in periodical studies, providing useful methodological tools for analysing the status, presentation and function of a particular genre within the heterogeneous, dialogic and time-bound format of the periodical.

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John Lehmann’s War Effort: The Penguin New Writing (1940–1950)

10.3366/edinburgh/9781474461085.003.0013 ◽

2020 ◽

pp. 250-272

Author(s):

Tessa Thorniley

Keyword(s):

Short Stories ◽

Short Story ◽

Elizabeth Bowen ◽

World War Two ◽

World War ◽

Graham Greene ◽

Literary Periodicals ◽

The World ◽

War Effort ◽

Rosamond Lehmann

John Lehmann’s The Penguin New Writing (1940-1950) is considered one of the finest literary periodicals of World War Two. The journal was committed to publishing writing about all aspects of wartime life, from the front lines to daily civilian struggles, by writers from around the world. It had an engaged readership and a high circulation. This chapter specifically considers Lehmann’s contribution to the wartime heyday for the short story form, through the example of The Penguin New Writing. By examining Lehmann’s editorial approach this chapter reveals the ways he actively engaged with his contributors, teasing and coaxing short stories out of them and contrasts this with the editorial style of Cyril Connolly at rival Horizon magazine. Stories by, and Lehmann’s interactions with, established writers such as Elizabeth Bowen, Henry Green and Rosamond Lehmann, the emerging writer William Sansom and working-class writers B.L Coombs and Jim Phelan, are the main focus of this chapter. The international outlook of the journal, which promoted satire from China alongside short, mocking works by Graham Greene, is also evaluated as an often overlooked aspect of Lehmann’s venture. Through the short stories and Lehmann’s editorials, this chapter traces how Lehmann sought to shape literature and to elevate the short story form. The chapter concludes by considering how the decline of the short story form in Britain from the 1950s onwards was closely linked to the demise of the magazines which had most actively supported it.

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