Literary Devices of Short Stories
We have read many short stories and you have written/learned about many literary devices. Your task is to choose 3 different stories and choose a literary device for each story that you feel really enhances its meaning. For online students, the poetry section that you have completed, is not pertinent to this topic…Just focus on the short story unit.
For example you may write about setting in one of the stories we read, symbolism in another one, and theme in a different story. You may not choose three different terms and discuss them based on one story, thus an essay that covers characterization, symbolism, and setting in “Young Goodman Brown” is unacceptable. So, once again, you will choose 3 terms from the following list, while pairing a term with ONE short story we have read, in the end having written about 3 short stories.
The following are the list of terms (and you know the short stories) from which you will choose:
Dynamic character
Theme
Setting
Symbolism
Verisimilitude (realism)
Verbal Irony
Situational Irony
Direct Characterization
Man vs. Society (as a form of conflict)
Anachronism (in regard to Kate Chopin as an author)
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Fiction Essay
Short fiction or short is a work of prose fiction shorter than a novel and mainly focuses on a few characters, simple plots, a swift introduction, and an ending. Short fiction employs literary devices on plots and characters to raise the story's value of a certain character or subject. Some literary devices include satire, allusion, simile, symbolism, irony, and flashbacks. Literary devices enable the writer to communicate their message from a unique perspective, emphasizing phrases, arousing emotions and moods, and offering insights, making the storytelling vivid and clear. From “I Stand Here Ironing," "Hills Like White Elephants," and "The Tell-Tale Heart” short stories, here is the reflection on themes, symbolism, and setting, respectively.
The theme is one of the evident literary devices in the “I Stand Here Ironing” short story. Themes are essential, unifying ideas in writings representing the bigger picture that arises as the characters chase their objectives. One of the major themes is the theme of working-class struggle. Poverty and struggles define Emily's life and the narrator's parenting decisions. “We were poor and could not afford for her the soil of easy growth" is a great example of poverty in the story (Olsen). Other evident themes in the short story include guilt, female identity, and responsibility. The use of themes in this short story expounds the story's meaning as the writer can show the role of selfishness mother, which the community anticipates incorporating as a hindrance to successful self-discovery. Instead of assisting women to accomplish self-actualization, motherhood forces women into lives full of suffering and excessive responsibility.
Symbolism is another literary device in the story of ‘hills like white elephants.’ It refers to using definite images to represent other things, su...