Beruflich Dokumente
Kultur Dokumente
19 al 21 de noviembre 2009
Universidad de Belgrano
Prof. Lic. Gabriela A. Llaneza
ISFD N°10, Tandil
The short story is often regarded as a newcomer within the family of highbrow
literature, as it was not until the nineteenth century that short stories appear to have deserved
the serious consideration of critics. Edgar Allan Poe first attempted to formulate some of its
basic features. “Poe conceived the short story as a work of art, as a vehicle for commentary on
the human situation, and as a medium of entertainment in which the basic fictional elements of
character, incident, setting and motivating idea closely or inseparably blended”,(….) designed
the short story were often misjudged due to its brevity, in comparison to the novel, and its
magazines.
In their exploration of short fiction some critics adhere to traditional definitions of the
genre, trying to justify the attributed low-status of the short story by referring to historical
relationships; while others question the notion of “genre” that underlies such definitions.
Consequently, the challenge facing short story theorists seems to go beyond their primary
subject of study to reach the conceptualization of “genre”. This question could be solved by an
Linguistics; short story critics would be able to consciously build a functional concept of genre,
as a cluster of features, which could incorporate the partial definitions of the short story
resulting from inductive research as well as the characteristics of historical subgenres. In the
present essay I intend to explore some of the attempts at definition of the genre of short fiction
and propose how the theory of Cognitive Models, initially proposed by George Lakoff, 1987,
(Evans and Green, 2006), could be applied and the way in which this conceptualization of the
genre would account for the constituent features of the short story “The Lottery ” by Sherley
Jackson.
In the paper “The Rise of the Short Story in the Hierarchy of Genres” (Lohafer &
Clarey, 1989), Suzanne Ferguson provides an account of the evolution of the English short
story, particularly during the nineteenth century, and the conditions that made the genre an
epitome of Modernism. The article builds on the sociological forces that contributed to the
mutation of short fiction and the politics of literary genres as a refraction of social change. The
and the refinement in the use of language enraptured Modernist critics, who found in the
modern short story the archetypal genre of their aesthetic conceptions. However, the rise of
the short story from the merely instrumental and experimental to the status of “high” art might
be more related to the shift in ideological, social and aesthetic conventions that upset the
establishment of early twentieth century history, creating the conditions for a fairer
appreciation of the merits of the short story, rather than the purposeful refurbishment of the
genre, a shift that the tenets of Genre Theory appear to have survived untouched.
In the article “The Short Story” (May, 1994) Mary Louise Pratt explores how the
structuralist bias of Genre Theory has affected the definition of the short story, and explains
how the asymmetrical relationship between the novel and the short story can be traced to
traditional content and marketing history of short fiction prior to its popularization. Although
analysis, her propositions fail to provide a conceptual frame for the definition of short fiction
without persistent reference to the characteristic features of the novel. In this way, what
appears to be an attack on the asymmetrical status between novel and short story turns into a
Friedman, and “On Defining the Short Story: The Genre Question”, by Austin M. Wright
(Lohafer & Clarey, 1989), both theorists explore the obstacles that arise from the lack of a
unifying definition of the genre. Norman Friedman points out some of the major difficulties that
arise when critics attempt to define the genre of short story: some of the inconsistencies result
from the application of different approaches to the process of definition, while others arise from
the methodology employed in producing such definitions. The existence of a vast number
short stories that date back to the Middles Ages and the relative recent intent to include the
genre within the scope of literary studies make the task of these critics extremely exacting, as
no single definition appears to account for every single short story ever produced. While most
critics would agree that a basic deductive definition fails to account for the complexity of the
genre, there seems to be no consistent method for producing a deductive definition. Austin M.
Wright suggests a practical inductive methodology for the definition of the short story, taking
as a basis an eclectic corpus, and then lists some of the basic features that appear to be
present in most texts, acknowledging that particular similarities might provide a framework for
preliminary stage would be for short story critics to concur on an image schema for their
category of study: the concept of genre. An “image schema” is a mental pattern that provides
structured understanding of various human experiences. One of the problems faced by critics
is that some of them perceive a category on the basis of a “containment schema”; that is, a
category as a box with boundaries that determine whether objects are inside or outside.
category, as the pattern evokes the mental image of a core and edge with different degrees of
distance from the core. According to Lakoff (Evans and Green, 2006) a category can be
defined as a set of features, features which delineate the category and are relevant to the
community within which that category is recognized. By agreeing on a definition of the genre
as a set of features relevant to most critics, short stories could be analyzed and categorized in
relation to those features. Because some categories have “fuzzy” boundaries and members
can have different status, a short story could be considered as a “prototype”, if it exemplifies all
of the basic necessary features, or a “borderline case” if it presents only one or two but none
of the others. There is also the possibility of groups of short stories sharing particular
similarities, which might provide a framework for the definition of subgenres. In this way the
hierarchy of a specific type of short fiction would not be determined merely by historical
prestige or complexity, but the capacity of a subgenre to represent the most organic
conjunction of features. What’s more this “center-periphery schema” is intrinsically flexible and
can be expanded without need for constant redefinition of the genre, which would be
particularly suitable for short fiction, a genre whose mutability and malleability defy
categorization.
corpus, which exceeds the scope of this work, yet it is possible to provide an initial exploration
on the grounds of Wright’s and Ferguson’s suggested features for the short story in general
and the “modern” short story as epitome of Modernism, in particular. In his article “On Defining
the Short Story: The Genre Question”, Austin M. Wright proposes six initial features for the
definition of the short story: a length varying between five hundred words and the length of
“Heart of Darkness”, the treatment of character and action in a fictional world, externally simple
action, economic use of devices and language, plots of small magnitude and an elliptical
construction of such plot. Suzanne Ferguson, in “The Rise of the Short Story in the Hierarchy
representational element, the compression and ellipsis of plot, and the refinement in the use of
language were the essential qualities that secured Modernist admiration. Because Shirley
Jackson’s canon exhibits most traits of Modernist aesthetics and “The Lottery” is one of her
most anthologized stories, it should be expected to have all, or most, of the features listed by
As proposed by Wright, Jackson’s “The Lottery” (1948) is the superficially simple and
inconsequential account of a contemporary time-honored town lottery that ends with the
word horrifying exploration of ritualized behaviour takes place in a serene village square,
effect of merging the apparently incompatible ideas of civility and mindless barbarism. The
elliptical plot, a journey of revelation for the reader, unfolds through a sequence of trivial
details about the lottery procedure and the meek gestures of the characters, building up in
contradiction to the readers’ expectations about lotteries. The basic pattern of exposition,
complication, climax and resolution, along which readers need to redefine their assumptions
about the ritual, begins with a vivid description of the background for the annual celebration: a
sunny summer morning on June 27 th, children and adults anxiously gathering at the town
square, comments about lotteries in neighboring towns, the preparation prior to the event and
vague references to “the original paraphernalia for the lottery…lost long ago”, yet carefully
avoiding to mention the prize. The complication is introduced when the official of the lottery
summons the heads of each family to draw, his good humour taken as disrespectful by the
oldest town resident, the winning family clearly distressed. The climax moves fast towards the
bloody resolution when Mrs. Hutchinson is forced to show the unlucky slip and the last
representational element. In “The Lottery” the choice of time, place and referential objects
appears endowed with symbolic connotations that can only be acknowledged on a second
reading.
The choice of June, after children have finished school, hints a traditional spring festival
as harmless as May Day. Moreover, Jackson’s initial sentence purposefully places life in the
foreground. “The morning of June 27th was clear and sunny, with the fresh warmth of a full-
summer day; the flowers were blossoming profusely and the grass was richly green.”. While
the introductions of the lottery official and procedures are associated with other American
celebrations, “(t)he lottery was conducted—as were the square dances, the teen club, and the
Halloween program—by Mr. Summers, who had time and energy to devote to civic activities.”.
On a second reading the symbolic dimension becomes evident: the lottery is a scapegoating
The description of the villagers is provided by subtle details that allude to a rural
twentieth century community: “(t)he people of the village began to gather in the square,
between the post office and the bank,…. (s)chool was recently over for the
leads readers to identify this community with their own, and assume their personal behavior
and expectations about lotteries to be the same as the villagers’. This process of identification
is the cornerstone of the story, as the horrifying effect of the resolution would be wasted
without it.
The explicit description of referential objects also contributes to realism and the
identification of readers with characters. While both characters and setting seem
comparatively sketchy, the lottery process and its instruments are fully described: the recycled
lottery box in need of repair, the three-legged stool, the practical slips of paper and the stones.
The stones are the first concrete object to receive careful attention in the second paragraph:
“Bobby Martin stuffed his pockets full of stones, and the other boys …select(ed) the
smoothest and roundest stones;… Bobby and Harry Jones and Dickie Delacroix…made a
great pile of stones in one corner of the square”. Then the fifth paragraph is entirely devoted to
the black box: its story, its whereabouts before and after the lottery and its shabby
appearance. This black box gains in symbolic significance throughout the story. The " story
that the present box had been made with some pieces of the box that had preceded it, the one
that had been constructed when the first people settled down to make a village here,” is the
clear antecedent and justification for this primitive ritual. Whereas the reason for locking the
box once the slips have been placed inside and young Billy Hutchison’s close destruction of
the item become clear when the box grows to stand for relentless adherence to barbarism.
objective point of view. The result is an ice-cold camera's-eye recording of the events in which
the interpretation of every object, movement or gesture depends entirely on the readers.
Hence the whole account of the morning, the tedious explanation of the lottery procedure, and
every word challenges the readers’ assumptions: the men whose “ jokes were quiet and …
smiled rather than laughed” , the villagers “ leaving a space between themselves and the
stool” grinning “at one another humorlessly and nervously”, the “ recital of some sort,
performed by the official of the lottery, a perfunctory, tuneless chant that had been rattled off
duly each year”, Mr. Summers’s eagerness to “get started, get this over with” ,Tessie
Hutchinson’s complaints, Billy Hutchinson’s red face and overlarge feet that nearly “knocked
the box over as he got a paper out”. Every piece of Jackson’s puzzle is rearranged to disclose
uneasiness and fear behind the seeming civility. With unquestionable ingenuity, Jackson
weaves setting, characters, plot and language, creating one of the most shocking and violent
In conclusion, the short story is one of the most flexible and ancient instances of
human artistry in the use of language; thus, any constraints on form or style in the
conceptualization and definition of the genre can only impoverish the scope of texts
acceptable as literary works, leaving behind rich and fruitful subgenres. It is worth noticing that
the greatest short stories ever written are those that juxtapose, reverse or strain the
language, symbols and structure. Therefore, if the masters of short fiction know no limits,
References
Ferguson, Suzanne. (1989) The Rise of the Short Story in the Hierarchy of Genres. In
Lohafer, S and Clarey, J.E. (Eds) Short story Theory at a Crossroads. Baton Rouge: Lousiana
State UP
Jackson, Shirley. “The Lottery” (1948) Classic Short Stories. Retrieved from
http://www.classicshorts.com/stories/lotry.html (Nov. 10, 2009)
Peden, Williams. (1971) Short Fiction: Shape and Substance. New York: Houghton-
Mifflin
Pratt, Mary Louise. (1994) The Short Story, In Chares May (Ed) The New Short
Theories. Athens: Ohio UP,
Wright, Austin M. (1989) On Defining the Short Story: The Genre Question. In Lohafer,
S and Clarey, J.E. (Eds) Short story Theory at a Crossroads. Baton Rouge: Louisiana State
UP