Short stories: themes, analysis, and literary techniques

¶ … Nathaniel Hawthorne's beliefs concerning ethics, morality, and guilt as made evident in one of these stories. Consider how beliefs affect characterization, setting, plotting, and theme.

In the story of Rappaccini's daughter, the narrator becomes infatuated with a young woman whose life literally has become poisoned, because of her father's influence. Unlike a conventional Christian system of morality, as is typical of most of the author's other tales, the girl is being 'punished' for no real crime, other than being born the daughter of a mad scientist. The European setting is also atypical of the author. It takes place in exotic Italy, where the fantastical narrative seems more appropriate than Puritan New England.

The title character's father is a botanist who has created a beautiful garden, but because of his extensive scientific knowledge, he has hubristically attempted to transcend the laws of nature. He has created a girl whom literally has no life outside of his grasp. His daughter is afflicted by guilt, because she knows her life is a perversion of her father's aims to transcend the laws of the natural world. She is also guilty because she knows, out of loneliness and desperation, she has been infecting the bloodstream of the man she loves, making him similarly poisonous, according to her father's will and desire.

Thus, the poisonous morality of her father has also affected the daughter, spiritually as well as biologically. Yet the girl's lover is also infected, not only with Rappaccini's poison but also with the same hubris that the young woman's father has. Her lover too hopes to surmount the laws of nature, by finding an antidote to the young woman's poison. But ultimately he cannot, as poison was the girl's life and birth. He ends up killing the young woman, killing the evidence of her father's experiment, and putting an end to the diseased girl, to Rappaccini's mad desires, but also to his own life's love.

Extinction may well be the end of all, but for Hemingway and his heroes this merely emphasizes the need to live each moment properly and skillfully. Select one of these stories and show how it illustrates that thesis. Indicate the relationship of plot, characterization, setting, and action to the theme.

In "Hills Like White Elephants," the unnamed male protagonist, unlike his young, pregnant lover 'Jip,' simply lives for the moment. The entire story takes place in dialogue, but the narrative voice does intrude just enough to note that the suitcases of the lovers are covered in stickers from far away places. These lovers like to try different, exotic drinks. As the story progresses, we as readers learn that they are on their way to yet another exotic location and are only stopping at a train station to catch a connection.

The male of the story is very exact in how his drinks should be prepared and how his girlfriend should behave. Although he seems to care about her, he does not wish her to have a child, because he fears it will get in the way of his ability to live life to the fullest, to drink more, see more, and experience more. She, in contrast, is quite sarcastic about this point-of-view, mocking his desire to try new drinks, for instance, and saying that everything tastes the same, like absinthe, or licorice.

Nothing really happens in the plot of the short story -- Jip is still going to have an abortion, and the two lovers proceed on their way. The setting is transitory, in between two train stops. Except for a confused, metaphorical discussion about the skin of hills that look like white elephants, no action takes place. However, the reference to white elephants reveals much about the characters, even though little about their pasts is opened over the course of the tale -- like the girl and the man, both of them mistake what is false, namely the hills and their love, for what is real. The man may be attempting to live in a better fashion, but really his life is empty and transitory and full of air, like the setting of the station itself and the procedure Jip is about to endure.

Some Critics of Chekhov call him primarily a social critic. Defend or attack this position with evidence from an appropriate story. What are the social issues or social conditions that are critiqued?

Chekhov's status as a social critic, although perhaps evidenced in some of his stories such as "Ward Six" seems belied by the fact that most of his tales, such as "Lady with a Lapdog," take place in the middle to upper class milieu of pre-Revolutionary Russia almost exclusively. The lady of the title is vacationing alone in Yalta, so she evidently has enough funds at her disposal to enjoy a bit of leisure time, even though she may be contemptuous of her husband, whom she refers to as a flunky. The man with whom she engages in an affair at Yalta is also relatively wealthy.

However, even though he does not bring the lower classes to life in this story, the boredom and misery evident in the protagonist's lives functions as a social critique. Money and the current Russian class structure bring no joy even to those who benefit from it. The only individuals who seem happy in the tale are individuals such as the young, married lady's husband, who basks in the social climate and his position in local society. Her lover's wife is described as a horrible woman, more concerned about constructing social theories about doing good, than actually doing real and lasting good in the world around her.

Lastly, the way the two interact with one another functions as a critique, as when the two first encounter one another, their affair appears transitory and brings no pleasure because of its illicit quality. However, when the two individuals go back to their respective existences and societies, they find that even an extramarital affair is more emotionally as well as physically sustaining than the lives they have left behind. This, perhaps, is the most potent social critique of all, that even what is immoral is better than a relationship with a social-climbing flunky and a woman who is more concerned with philosophy than politics.

Social life often appears lunatic in the Kafka world. Analyze one of the stories that seem to address this absurd condition of human existence. Consider, characterization, setting, plot and theme.

In Kafka's "The Hunger Artist," the short story author creates a mad world, where people pay to see an individual starving himself, much like an animal at the zoo. People are portrayed as stuffing themselves numb, than viewing the hunger artist as a curiosity before and after their indulgent meals. Kafka describes the zeal for hunger artistry as a fad that comes and goes, according to the fickle public's desire, although the hunger artist himself remains dedicated to his task.