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Introduction to Fiction, An

ISBN: 9780321475831 | 0321475836
Edition: 10th
Format: Paperback
Publisher: Longman
Pub. Date: 1/1/2007

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SummaryTable of Contents
Kennedy/Gioia'sAn Introduction to Fiction, 10econtinues to inspire students with a rich collection of fiction and engaging insights on reading, analyzing, and writing about stories. This bestselling anthology includes sixty-six superlative short stories, blending classic works and contemporary selections. Written by noted poets X.J. Kennedy and Dana Gioia, the text reflects the authors'wit and contagious enthusiasm for their subject. Informative, accessible apparatus presents readable discussions of the literary devices, illustrated by apt work... MORE
Prefacexix
To the Instructorxxiii
About the Authorsxxxiii
FICTION
1 Reading a Story
3
... MORE
Fable, Parable, and Tale
4
W. Somerset Maugham
THE APPOINTMENT IN SAMARRA
4
A servant tries to gallop away from Death in this brief sardonic fable retold in memorable form by a popular storyteller.
Aesop
THE NORTH WIND AND THE SUN
5
The North Wind and the Sun argue who is stronger and decide to try their powers on an unsuspecting traveler.
Bidpai
THE CAMEL AND HIS FRIENDS
6
With friends like these, you can guess what the camel doesn't need.
Chuang Tzu
INDEPENDENCE
8
The Prince of Ch'u asks the philosopher Chuang Tzu to become his advisor and gets a surprising reply in this classic Chinese fable.
Jakob and Wilhelm Grimm
GODFATHER DEATH
9
Neither God nor the Devil came to the christening.
In this stark folktale, a young man receives magical powers with a string attached.
Plot
The Short Story
13
John Updike
A&P
14
In walk three girls in nothing but bathing suits, and Sammy finds himself no longer an aproned checkout clerk but an armored knight.
WRITING EFFECTIVELY
WRITERS ON WRITING
John Updike
WHY WRITE?
20
WRITING ABOUT PLOT
Paying Attention to Plot
20
CHECKLIST
Analyzing Plot
21
WRITING ASSIGNMENT ON PLOT
22
MORE TOPICS FOR WRITING
22
2 Point of View
23
William Faulkner
A ROSE FOR EMILY
28
Proud, imperious Emily Grierson defied the town from the fortress of her mansion.
Who could have guessed the secret that lay within?
Anne Tyler
TEENAGE WASTELAND
35
With her troubled son, his teachers, and a peculiar tutor all giving her their own versions of what's going on with him, what's a mother to do?
James Baldwin
SONNY'S BLUES
43
Two brothers in Harlem see life differently.
The older brother is the sensible family man, but Sonny wants to be a jazz musician.
Eudora Welty
A WORN PATH
64
When the man said to old Phoenix, "you must be a hundred years old, and scared of nothing," he might have been exaggerating, but not by much.
WRITING EFFECTIVELY
WRITERS ON WRITING
James Baldwin
RACE AND THE AFRICAN AMERICAN WRITER
70
WRITING ABOUT POINT OF VIEW
How Point of View Shapes a Story
71
CHECKLIST
Understanding Point of View
71
WRITING ASSIGNMENT ON POINT OF VIEW
72
MORE TOPICS FOR WRITING
72
3 Character
73
Katherine Anne Porter
THE JILTING OF GRANNY WEATHERALL
76
For sixty years Ellen Weatherall has fought back the memory of that terrible day, but now once more the priest waits in the house.
Katherine Mansfield
MISS BRILL
83
Sundays had long brought joy to solitary Miss Brill, until one fateful day when she happened to share a bench with two lovers in the park.
Tobias Wolff
THE RICH BROTHER
86
Blood may be thicker than water, but sometimes the tension between brothers is thicker than blood.
Raymond Carver
CATHEDRAL
98
He had never expected to find himself trying to describe a cathedral to a blind man.
He hadn't even wanted to meet this odd, old friend of his wife.
WRITING EFFECTIVELY
WRITERS ON WRITING
Raymond Carver
COMMONPLACE BUT PRECISE LANGUAGE
109
WRITING ABOUT CHARACTER
How Character Creates Action
110
CHECKLIST
Writing About Character
110
WRITING ASSIGNMENT ON CHARACTER
110
MORE TOPICS FOR WRITING
111
4 setting
112
Kate Chopin
55
THE STORM
115
Even with her husband away, Calixta feels happily, securely married.
Why then should she not shelter an old admirer from the rain?
Jack London
TO BUILD A FIRE
119
Seventy-five degrees below zero.
Alone except for one mistrustful wolf dog, a man finds himself battling a relentless force.
T. Coraghessan Boyle
GREASY LAKE
130
Murky and strewn with beer cans, the lake appears a wasteland.
On its shore three "dangerous characters" learn a lesson one grim night.
Amy Tan
A PAIR OF TICKETS
137
A young woman flies with her father to China to meet two half sisters she never knew existed.
WRITING EFFECTIVELY
WRITERS ON WRITING
Amy Tan
SETTING THE VOICE
150
WRITING ABOUT SETTING
The Importance of Setting
151
CHECKLIST
Analyzing Setting
152
WRITING ASSIGNMENT ON SETTING
152
MORE TOPICS FOR WRITING
152
5 Tone and Style
153
Ernest Hemingway
10
A CLEAN, WELL-LIGHTED PLACE
156
All by himself each night, the old man lingers in the bright cafe.
What does he need more than brandy?
William Faulkner
BARN BURNING
160
This time when Ab Snopes wields his blazing torch, his son Sarty faces a dilemma: whether to obey or defy the vengeful old man.
Irony
172
O. Henry
THE GIFT OF THE MAGI
174
A young husband and wife find ingenious ways to buy each other Christmas presents, in the classic story that defines the word "irony."
Ha Jin
SABOTEUR
178
When the police unfairly arrest Mr. Chiu, he hopes for justice.
After witnessing their brutality, he quietly plans revenge.
WRITING EFFECTIVELY
WRITERS ON WRITING
Ernest Hemingway
THE DIRECT STYLE
186
WRITING ABOUT TONE AND STYLE
Be Style-Conscious
186
CHECKLIST
Thinking About Tone and Style
187
WRITING ASSIGNMENT ON TONE AND STYLE
187
MORE TOPICS FOR WRITING
188
6 Theme
189
Stephen Crane
THE OPEN BOAT
191
In a lifeboat circled by sharks, tantalized by glimpses of land, a reporter scrutinizes Fate and learns about comradeship.
Alice Munro
HOW I MET MY HUSBAND
208
When Edie meets the carnival pilot, her life gets more complicated than she expects.
Luke 15:11-32
THE PARABLE OF THE PRODIGAL SON
220
A father has two sons.
One demands his inheritance now and leaves to spend it with ruinous results.
Kurt Vonnegut, Jr.
HARRISON BERGERON
221
Are you handsome?
Off with your eyebrows!
Are you brainy?
Let a transmitter sound thought-shattering beeps inside your ear.
WRITING EFFECTIVELY
WRITERS ON WRITING
Kurt Vonnegut, Jr.
THE THEMES OF SCIENCE FICTION
226
WRITING ABOUT THEME
Stating the Theme
227
CHECKLIST
Determining a Story's Theme
228
WRITING ASSIGNMENT ON THEME
228
MORE TOPICS FOR WRITING
228
7 Symbol
229
John Steinbeck
THE CHRYSANTHEMUMS
231
Fenced-in Elisa feels emotionally starved—then her life promises to blossom with the arrival of the scissors-grinding man.
Shirley Jackson
THE LOTTERY
239
Splintered and faded, the sinister black box had worked its annual terror for longer than anyone in town could remember.
Elizabeth Tallent
NO ONE'S A MYSTERY
245
A two-page story speaks volumes about an open-hearted girl and her married lover.
Ursula K. Le Guin
THE ONES WHO WALK AWAY FROM OMELAS
248
Omelas is the perfect city.
All of its inhabitants are happy.
But everyone's prosperity depends on a hidden evil.
WRITING EFFECTIVELY
WRITERS ON WRITING
Shirley Jackson
BIOGRAPHY OF A STORY
253
WRITING ABOUT SYMBOLS
Recognizing Symbols
255
CHECKLIST
Thinking About Symbols
256
WRITING ASSIGNMENT ON SYMBOLS
256
Student Paper
AN ANALYSIS OF THE SYMBOLISM IN STEINBECICS "THE CHRYSANTHEMUMS"
256
MORE TOPICS FOR WRITING
259
8 Evaluating a Story
260
Yiyun Li
A THOUSAND YEARS OF GOOD PRAYERS
262
An elderly Chinese man wants to help his Americanized daughter find happiness, but are there too many secrets standing in the way?
WRITING EFFECTIVELY
WRITERS ON WRITING
Yiyun Li
WHAT I COULD NOT WRITE ABOUT WAS WHY I WAS WRITING
271
WRITING AN EVALUATION
Judging a Story's Value
272
CHECKLIST
Evaluating a Story
273
WRITING ASSIGNMENT ON EVALUATING A STORY
273
MORE TOPICS FOR WRITING
274
9 Reading Long Stories and Novels
275
Leo Tolstoy
THE DEATH OF IVAN ILYCH
280
The supreme Russian novelist tells how a petty, ambitious judge, near the end of his wasted life, discovers a harrowing truth.
Franz Kafka
THE METAMORPHOSIS
317
"When Gregor Samsa awoke one morning from troubled dreams, he found himself transformed in his bed into a monstrous insect."
Kafka's famous opening sentence introduces one of the most chilling stories in world literature.
WRITING EFFECTIVELY
WRITERS ON WRITING
Franz Kafka
DISCUSSING THE METAMORPHOSIS
348
WRITING ABOUT LONG STORIES AND NOVELS
Knowing What to Leave Out
349
CHECKLIST
Organizing Your Ideas for a Research Paper
349
WRITING ASSIGNMENT FOR A RESEARCH PAPER
349
Student Research Paper
KAFKA'S GREATNESS
MORE TOPICS FOR WRITING
356
10 Critical Casebook: Flannery O'Connor357
Flannery O'Connor
A GOOD MAN IS HARD TO FIND
358
Wanted: The Misfit, a cold-blooded killer.
An ordinary family vacation leads to horror and one moment of redeeming grace.
Flannery O'Connor
REVELATION
368
Mrs. Turpin thinks herself Jesus' favorite child, until she meets a troubled college girl.
Soon violence flares in a doctor's waiting room.
Flannery O'Connor
PARKER'S BACK
382
A tormented man tries to find his way to God and to his wife—by having himself tattooed.
Flannery O'Connor ON Writing
FROM "ON HER OWN WORK"
396
ON HER CATHOLIC FAITH
398
FROM "THE GROTESQUE IN SOUTHERN FICTION"
399
YEARBOOK CARTOONS
401
Critics ON Flannery O'Connor
Robert H. Brinkmeyer, Jr.
FLANNERY O'CONNOR AND HER READERS
402
J.O. Tate
A GOOD SOURCE IS NOT SO HARD TO FIND: THE REAL LIFE MISFIT
404
Mary Jane Schenck
DECONSTRUCTING "A GOOD MAN IS HARD FIND"
407
Kathleen Feeley
THE MYSTERY OF DIVINE DIRECTION: "PARKER'S BACK"
408
WRITING EFFECTIVELY
WRITING ABOUT AN AUTHOR
How One Story Illuminates Another
410
CHECKLIST
Reading an Author in Depth
410
WRITING ASSIGNMENT ON AN AUTHOR
411
MORE TOPICS FOR WRITING
411
11 Critical Casebook: Three Stories in Depth412
Edgar Allan Poe
412
THE TELL-TALE HEART
413
The smoldering eye at last extinguished, a murderer finds that, despite all his attempts at a cover-up, his victim will be heard.
Edgar Allan Poe ON Writing
THE TALE AND ITS EFFECT
417
ON IMAGINATION
418
THE PHILOSOPHY OF COMPOSITION
418
Critics ON "The Tell-Tale Heart"
Daniel Hoffman
THE FATHER-FIGURE IN "THE TELL-TALE HEART"
419
Scott Peeples
"THE TELL-TALE HEART" AS A LOVE STORY
421
John Chua
THE FIGURE OF THE DOUBLE IN POE
422
Charlotte Perkins Gilman
424
THE YELLOW WALLPAPER
424
A doctor prescribes a "rest cure" for his wife after the birth of their child.
The new mother tries to settle in to life in the isolated and mysterious country house they have rented for the summer.
The cure proves worse than the disease in this Gothic classic.
Charlotte Perkins Gilman ON Writing
WHY I WROTE "THE YELLOW WALLPAPER"
435
WHATEVER IS
436
THE NERVOUS BREAKDOWN OF WOMEN
437
Critics ON "The Yellow Wallpaper"
Juliann Fleenor
GENDER AND PATHOLOGY IN "THE YELLOW WALLPAPER"
438
Sandra M. Gilbert and Susan Gubar
IMPRISONMENT AND ESCAPE: THE PSYCHOLOGY OF CONFINEMENT
439
Elizabeth Ammons
BIOGRAPHICAL ECHOES IN "THE YELLOW WALLPAPER"
441
Alice Walker
443
EVERYDAY USE
443
When successful Dee visits from the city, she has changed her name to reflect her African roots.
Her mother and sister notice other things have changed, too.
Alice Walker ON Writing
THE BLACK WOMAN WRITER IN AMERICA
450
REFLECTIONS ON WRITING
451
Critics ON "Everyday Use"
Barbara T. Christian
"EVERYDAY USE" AND THE BLACK POWER MOVEMENT
453
Houston A. Baker and Charlotte Pierce-Baker
STYLISH VS. SACRED IN "EVERYDAY USE"
455
Elaine Showalter
QUILT AS METAPHOR IN "EVERYDAY USE"
459
WRITING EFFECTIVELY
TOPICS FOR WRITING ON "THE TELL-TALE HEART"
461
TOPICS FOR WRITING ON "THE YELLOW WALLPAPER"
461
TOPICS FOR WRITING ON "EVERYDAY USE"
461
12 Stories for Further Reading462
Chinua Achebe
DEAD MEN'S PATH
462
The new headmaster of the village school was determined to fight superstition, but the villagers did not agree.
Anjana Appachana
THE PROPHECY
465
Seventeen years old and pregnant, Amrita doesn't know what to do, but before she visits the gynecologist, she consults a fortune teller.
Margaret Atwood
HAPPY ENDINGS
476
John and Mary Meet.
What happens next?
This witty experimental story offers five different outcomes.
Ambrose Bierce
AN OCCURRENCE AT OWL CREEK BRIDGE
479
At last, Peyton Farquhar's neck is in the noose.
Reality mingles with dream in this classic story of the American Civil War.
Jorge Luis Borges
THE GOSPEL ACCORDING TO MARK
485
A young man from Buenos Aires is trapped by a flood on an isolated ranch.
To pass the time he reads the Gospel to a family with unforeseen results.
Willa Cather
PAUL'S CASE
489
Paul's teachers can't understand the boy.
Then one day, with stolen cash, he boards a train for New York and the life of his dreams.
John Cheever
THE FIVE-FORTY-EIGHT
503
After their brief affair, Blake fired his secretary.
He never expected she would seek revenge.
Anton Chekhov
THE LADY WITH THE PET DOG
512
Lonely and bored at a seaside resort, a couple seeks a merely casual affair.
How could they know it might deepen and trouble their separate marriages?
Kate Chopin
THE STORY OF AN HOUR
523
"There was something coming to her and she was waiting for it, fearfully.
What was it?
She did not know; it was too subtle and elusive to name."
Sandra Cisneros
THE HOUSE ON MANGO STREET
525
Does where we live tell what we are?
A little girl dreams of a new house, but things don't always turn out the way we want them to.
Ralph Ellison
BATTLE ROYAL
526
A young black man is invited to deliver his high school graduation speech to a gathering of a Southern town's leading white citizens.
What promises to be an honor turns into a nightmare of violence, humiliation, and painful self-discovery.
Gabriel Garcia Márquez
THE HANDSOMEST DROWNED MAN IN THE WORLD
536
Even in death, a mysterious stranger has a profound effect on all of the people in the village.
Dagoberto Gilb
LOOK ON THE BRIGHT SIDE
540
"You have to look on the bright side" is the motto of this story's narrator, but that gets harder and harder to do as things just keep on getting worse.
Nathaniel Hawthorne
YOUNG GOODMAN BROWN
548
Urged on through deepening woods, a young Puritan sees—or dreams he sees—good villagers hasten toward a diabolic rite.
Zora Neale Hurston
SWEAT
558
Delia's hard work paid for her small house.
Now her drunken husband Sykes has promised it to another woman.
Kazuo Ishiguro
A FAMILY SUPPER
566
Something very odd lurks beneath the surface of this family supper, and it might prove fatal.
James Joyce
ARABY
573
If only he can find her a token, she might love him in return.
As night falls, a Dublin boy hurries to make his dream come true.
Jamaica Kincaid
GIRL
578
"Try to walk like a lady, and not like the slut you are so bent on becoming."
An old-fashioned mother tells her daughter how to live.
Jhumpa Lahiri
INTERPRETER OF MALADIES
579
Mr. Kapasi' s life had settled into a quiet pattern—and then Mrs.
Das and her family came into it.
D.H. Lawrence
THE ROCKING-HORSE WINNER
593
Wild-eyed "as if something were going to explode in him," the boy predicts each winning horse, and gamblers rush to bet a thousand pounds.
Bobbie Ann Mason
SHILOH
604
After the accident Leroy could no longer work as a truck driver.
He hoped to make a new life with his wife, but she seemed strangely different.
Joyce Carol Oates
WHERE ARE YOU GONG, WHERE HAVE YOU BEEN?
613
Alone in the house, Connie finds herself helpless before the advances of a spellbinding imitation teenager, Arnold Friend.
Tim O'Brien
THE THINGS THEN, CARRIED
625
What each soldier carried into the combat zone was largely determined by necessity, but each man's necessities differed.
Tillie Olsen
I STAND HERE IRONING
637
Deserted by her husband, forced to send away her child, a woman remembers how both she and her daughter managed to survive.
Octavio Paz
MY LIFE WITH THE WAVE
642
Meet the oddest couple ever, in this story by a Nobel Prize-winning poet.
Leslie Marmon Silko
THE MAN TO SEND RAIN CLOUDS
646
When old Teofilo dies, his friends give him a tribal burial to ensure that the rains will come for the pueblo.
But can they also convince Father Paul to take part in the pagan ceremony?
Helena Maria Viramontes
THE MOTHS
649
An angry adolescent performs a final act of love for the grandmother who made her feel "safe and guarded and not alone."
WRITING
13 Writing About a Story657
Reading Actively
657
Thinking About a Story
659
Preparing to Write: Discovering Ideas
660
Sample Student Prewriting Exercises
660
Writing a First Draft
663
CHECKLIST
Writing a Rough Draft
664
Revising
664
CHECKLIST
Revision
666
What's Your Purpose? Some Common Approaches to Writing About Fiction
666
EXPLICATION
666
Sample Student Paper (EXPLICATION)
668
ANALYSIS
671
Sample Student Paper (ANALYSIS)
672
THE CARD REPORT
675
Sample Student Card Report
676
COMPARISON AND CONTRAST
678
Sample Student Paper (COMPARISON AND CONTRAST)
679
The Form of Your Finished Paper
681
Topics for Writing
682
14 Writing a Research Paper684
Getting Started
684
Choosing a Topic
685
Finding Research Sources
685
FINDING PRINT RESOURCES
685
USING ONLINE DATABASES
686
FINDING RELIABLE WEB SOURCES
686
CHECKLIST
Finding Sources
687
USING VISUAL IMAGES
688
CHECKLIST
Using Visual Images
689
Evaluating Sources
689
EVALUATING PRINT RESOURCES
689
EVALUATING WEB RESOURCES
689
CHECKLIST
Evaluating Sources
690
Organizing Your Research
691
Refining Your Thesis
693
Organizing Your Paper
694
Writing and Revising
694
Guarding Academic Integrity
695
Acknowledging Sources
695
QUOTING A SOURCE
696
CITING IDEAS
696
Documenting Sources Using MLA Style
697
LIST OF SOURCES
698
PARENTHETICAL REFERENCES
698
WORKS CITED LIST
698
CITING PRINT SOURCES IN MLA STYLE
699
CITING INTERNET SOURCES IN MLA STYLE
700
SAMPLE WORKS CITED LIST
701
Concluding Thoughts
702
Reference Guide for Citations
703
15 Criticl Approaches to Literature710
Formalist Criticism
711
Cleanth Brooks
THE FORMALIST CRITIC
711
Michael Clark
LIGHT AND DARKNESS IN "SONNY'S BLUES"
712
Biographical Criticism
713
Virginia Llewellyn Smith
CHEKHOV'S ATTITUDE TO ROMANTIC LOVE
714
Emily Toth
THE SOURCE FOR ALCÉE LABALLIÈRE IN "THE STORM"
716
Historical Criticism
717
John King
THE ARGENTINE CONTEXT OF BORGES'S FANTASTIC FICTION
718
Kathryn Lee Seidel
THE ECONOMICS OF ZORA NEALE HURSTON'S "SWEAT"
720
Psychological Criticism
722
Sigmund Freud
THE DESTINY OF OEDIPUS
723
Gretchen Schulz and R.J.R. Rockwood
FAIRY TALE MOTIFS IN "WHERE ARE YOU GOING, WHERE HAVE YOU BEEN?"
724
Mythological Criticism
725
Carl Jung
THE COLLECTIVE UNCONSCIOUS AND ARCHETYPES
726
Edmond Volpe
MYTH IN FAULKNER'S "BARN BURNING"
727
Sociological Criticism
729
Georg Lukacs
CONTENT DETERMINES FORM
729
Daniel P. Watkins
MONEY AND LABOR IN "THE ROCKING-HORSE WINNER"
730
Gender Criticism
731
Elaine Showalter
TOWARD A FEMINIST CRITICISM
732
Nina Pelikan Straus
TRANSFORMATIONS IN THE METAMORPHOSIS
733
Reader-Response Criticism
734
Stanley Fish
AN ESKIMO "A ROSE FOR EMILY"
735
Michael J. Colacurcio
IAN BROWN
736
Deconstructionist Criticism
737
Roland Barthes
THE DEATH OF THE AUTHOR
738
Barbara Johnson
RIGOROUS UNRELIABILITY
738
Cultural Studies
739
Vincent B. Leitch
POSTSTRUCTURALIST CULTURAL CRITIQUE
741
Mark Bauerlein
WHAT IS CULTURAL STUDIES?
742
Glossary of Literary TermsG1
AcknowledgmentsA1
Index of Major ThemesI1
Index of Authors and TitlesI3
Index of Literary Terms

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