Literature Focus III. Modern British Short Story

Around 1880, however, the British began to question the Victorian values and conventions that had unified their country (and empire) for the past fifty years. The writer Frank O’Connor suggests that the short story is typically a product of a fragmented society. Thus, as the Victorian world fell apart, writers focused on the individual and the present moment rather than on society and historical continuity. Suddenly, the concentrated form of the short story made sense.

Toward RealismBritish fiction during the 1880s and 1890s reflects the transition from Victorian literary conventions to 20^th-century Realism. The short stories of Thomas Hardy, for instance, reflect a melancholy attitude and a shift toward Realism; yet, the reality Hardy presents is undermined by the artificiality of the Victorian language he uses. Similarly, Rudyard Kipling’s short stories were criticized for their focus on brief episodes and use of literary “tricks.” Indeed, the short story form was widely criticized as too episodic and formulaic to contain any moral force. Joseph Conrad’s short stories, on the other hand, unite the aims of Realism and Romanticism through the use of concrete, realistic details to suggest deeper symbolic and philosophical meanings. According to the critic Charles E. May, it was Conrad who, “because of the profundity of his vision and the subtlety of his use of language, effectively made the transition” and mastered the modern short story form.

ModernismBoth public literacy and the availability of reading material increased drastically during the Victorian and early modern periods. These factors broadened and fractured the reading public; writers could no longer take for granted a unified audience. The growing alienation between the artist and society during the 1890s became the dominant force of the Modernist movement. Many Modernist writers deliberately opposed popular tastes and trends.

After the turn of the century, prevailing assumptions about the individual, faith, history, materialism, and knowledge shattered. Writers no longer saw reality as a recognizable constant; rather, reality depended on each person’s fragmented perception of it. “Look within,” suggested Virginia Woolf. Woolf and other writers, including Katherine Mansfield, James Joyce, and D. H. Lawrence, concentrated on writing about “an ordinary mind on an ordinary day”—that is, about the mental consciousness of a character. Sigmund Freud’s psychoanalysis contributed to this focus on the internal life and spurred literary innovations, such as stream-of-consciousness writing.

Furthermore, many modern short stories are known for depicting seemingly trivial “slices of life” that depend on important moments and the manipulation of mood rather than plot to reveal meaning. For example, in his stories, Joyce established theme through realistic detail and atmosphere. He often used epiphany—or a moment of revelation in which something commonplace is seen in a new light—to unify and bring his stories to a close.

Mid-Twentieth-Century StyleThe events of the early 20^th c., particularly the world wars and the Great Depression, irrevocably destroyed many British conventions and ideals. Like earlier Modernist writers, Elizabeth Bowen and Graham Greene wrote stories that focused on the internal psychological and moral struggles within characters. However, Bowen and Greene often linked their characters to contemporary political and social settings.

For the modern short story writer, any subject will do, and nothing needs to “happen.” Yet, due to the constraints of the form, every detail must contribute to a story’s meaning. As William Faulkner noted, “In a short story ... almost every word has to be almost exactly right.”

Date: 2016-03-03; view: 951