Introduction to Fiction, An

by Kennedy, X. J.; Gioia, Dana

• ISBN13: 9780321475831
• ISBN10: 0321475836
• Edition: 10th
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 2007-01-01
• Publisher: Longman

Summary

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 works, and supported by interludes with the anthologized writers. This edition features 11 new stories, three new masterwork casebooks, extensively revised and expanded chapters on writing, and a fresh new design.

Table of Contents

Preface	xix
To the Instructor	xxiii
About the Authors	xxxiii
FICTION
1 Reading a Story	3
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'Connor	357
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 Depth	412
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 Reading	462
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 Story	657
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 Paper	684
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 Literature	710
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 Terms	G1
Acknowledgments	A1
Index of Major Themes	I1
Index of Authors and Titles	I3
Index of Literary Terms