ENGL 320:  The Short Story

Fall 2003

Lyman Baker, Instructor

 

Course Schedule:

Readings, Writing Assignments, and Exams

 

Part 2:  End of Week 3 through the Mid-Term Exam

5 Sept (F):  (1) Read our editors' introduction to John Barth (pp. 138-139).

(2) Read Barth's story "Night-Sea Journey" (pp. 139-145).

8 Sept (M):  Re-read Barth's "Night-Sea Journey", in the light of the Study Guide for this story.

10 Sept (W):  (1) Read our editors' introduction to Dagoberto Gilb (p. 724).

(2) Read Gilb's story "Look on the Bright Side" (pp. 725-733).

• Does the story win your sympathy and even admiration for the narrator?  If so, how?
• Does the story lead you to criticize the narrator, or even to look down on him?  If so, how?

12 Sept (F):  (1) Read our editors' introduction to Andre Dubus (pp. 565-566).

(2) Read Dubus's story "A Father's Story" (pp. 566-580).

(3) Read the excerpt from John Smolens' interview with Dubus on p. 581.  

• One of the teachers whose reaction to this story  Dubus discusses here was that the story would have been better if there had been "a little ironic distance" between the narrator and the implied writer of the story.  In effect, she was saying Dubus should have built in some clues that would lead the reader to see dramatic irony at work at the narrator's expense.  What in particular did she evidently want Dubus to find some way of communicating?  How does Dubus reply to this suggestion?

15 Sept (M):  (1) Read our editors' introduction to Ralph Ellison (p. 582).

(2) Read Ellison's story "A Party Down at the Square" (pp. 583-587).

(3) Read the excerpt from Ellison's essay "Twentieth-Century Fiction and the Black Mask of Humanity" (pp. 582-588).

(4) Have a look at reports by James Weldon Johnson, the Memphis Press, and B.F.D. Beneke on a event in 1917 in Tennessee (pp. 1760-1761).

17 Sept (W):  (1)  Read the editors' introduction to William Faulkner (pp. 597-598).

(2) Have read for discussion Faulkner's story "A Rose for Emily" (pp. 627-634).  There is a Study Guide to this story.

(3) Read the excerpt from Faulkner's acceptance speech on the occasion of his being awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature (p. 634). 

19 Sept (F):  (1) Read our editors' introduction to Isaac Bashevis Singer (pp. 1522-1533).

(2) Read Singer's story "Gimpel the Fool" (pp. 1523-1533). There is a Study Guide to this story.

(3) Reflect on the excerpt from Harold Flender's interview with Singer (pp. 1533-1534).  

• Consider Singer's insistence that "[m]y characters, though they are not big men in the sense that they play a big part in the world, still they are not little because in their own fashion they are men of character, they are men of thinking, men of great suffering."  In what sense is Gimpel a "man of character"?  In what sense is he a "man of thinking"?  

22 Sept (M):  (1) To consolidate what we've been taking up in class during the last couple of class sessions, work your way through our editors' discussion of "Plot" (pp. 1863-1868).

(2) Work through our online glossary entry on epiphany.

In preparation for the Mid-Term Exam, start going back over each of the stories we have read to see if it turns on one or another sort of epiphany (an epiphany on the part of the protagonist, or on the part of the non-protagonist narrator, or on the part of the audience).

(3) Read our editors' introduction to Sandra Cisneros (p. 432).

(4) Read Cisneros' story "Barbie-Q" (432-434).

24 Sept (W):  (1) Read what our editors have to say about "Characterization" (pp. 1868-1871) and about "The Essential Qualities of the Short Story" (p. 1848).

Thinking back over the stories we've read so far, fasten upon what you take to be a key decision taken by the protagonist.  In preparation for the Mid-Term Exam, start formulating a full account of what you think the story invites us to understand as the motivation of this decision.

(2) Read our editors' introduction to Louise Erdrich (pp. 589-590).

(3) Read Erdrich's story "The Red Convertible" (pp. 590-611).

26 Sept (F):  (1) Work through our online glossary articles on character and characterization.

(2) Read our editors' introduction to Kate Chopin (p.425 ).

(3) Read Chopin's "Story of an Hour" (pp. 430-431).  There is a Study Guide to this story.

29 Sept (M):  (1) Work through our online glossary article on psychological repression. 

In preparation for the Mid-Term, begin gathering your thoughts about which of the stories we're reading up until then prompt the reader to infer unconscious motivation at work.

(2) Read our editors' introduction to Katherine Anne Porter (pp. 1476-1477).

(3) Read Porter's story "The Jilting of Granny Weatherall" (pp. 1477-1483).  There is a Study Guide to this story.

1 Oct (W):  (1) Work through our online glossary article on Freud's analogies for clarifying the concept of repression.

(2) Read our editors' introduction to Charlotte Perkins Gilman (p 743).

(3) Read Gilman's story "The Yellow Wallpaper" (pp. 735-746).  There is a Study Guide to this story.

(4) Reflect on Gilman's remarks in "Why I Wrote 'The Yellow Wallpaper'" (pp. 1762-3).

(*) Also interesting (recommended, not required):  Juliann Fleenor on "Gender and Pathology in 'The Yellow Wallpaper'" (pp. 1822-1823).

3 Oct (F):  (1) Work through our online glossary article on Freud's discussion of alternatives to repression.

(2) Read our editors' introduction to Katherine Mansfield (p. 1146).

(3) Read Katherine Mansfield's story "Miss Brill" (pp. 1147-1150)

6 Oct (M):  (1) Work through our online glossary articles on flat vs. round characterization and on static vs. dynamic characterization.

In preparation for the Mid-Term, begin gathering your thoughts about the characterization of the protagonist in each of the stories we've read:  should we understand them as flat, or as round?  as static, or as dynamic?  Be prepared to explain the facts that make the difference.

(2) Read our editors' introduction to Joseph Conrad (pp. 441-442).

(3) Read Part I of Conrad's story "The Secret Sharer" (pp. 442-455).

(4) Reflect on Conrad's remarks on "The Condition of Art" (pp. 472-471).

8 Oct (W):  (1) Work through our online glossary article on classifying plots in terms of characterization.

In preparation for the Mid-Term, begin thinking through the stories we've read so far with a view to deciding which of these types of plot we have to do with in each case.  Be sure to follow up your decision by speculating about how this choice serves what you are led to understand as the author's overall aims in the story as a whole.

(2) Finish Conrad's "The Secret Sharer" (i.e., Part II, pp. 455-472)

(3) Have a look at the London Times reports (1882) on "The Trial of Sidney Smith" and "The Sentencing of Sidney Smith" (pp. 1752-1754).

10 Oct (F):  (1) To consolidate what we've been saying about participant and non-participant narration, work your way through what our editors have to say about "Point of View" (pp. 1871-1873).  

13 Oct (M):  No class.  Student holiday.

15 Oct (W):  Mid-Term Examination.  You'll want to be sure to exploit the prep sheet for this exam.  (Note that this link is to the "General Prep Sheet" for the mid-term.  It has links to two additional parts of the prep sheet you will want to be sure to consult as well.)

17 Oct (F):  (1) Read our editors' introduction to Tobias Wolff (pp. 1721-1722).

(2) Read Wolff's story "In the Garden of the North American Martyrs" (pp. 1722-1730).

    Return to the Course Home Page (English 320:  The Short Story).

    Return to Course Schedule 1, for earlier assignments covered by the Mid-Term Exam.

    Go to Course Schedule 3, for assignments between the Mid-Term and Final Exam.

  Suggestions are welcome.  Please send your comments to lyman@ksu.edu .

   Contents copyright © 2001 by Lyman A. Baker.

Permission is granted for non-commercial educational use; all other rights reserved.