‘Everything comes from somewhere’ , says Salman Rushdie, and if the sages of yore came from the ‘great Story Sea’, modern tales well up from the depths of the human psyche and human experience. Narrative and narration: A Study of the Modern Short Story closely examines five classic modern stories by acclaimed masters of the genre. Each text is preceded by a critical introduction and commentary on the writer, his/her life and works, historical context, fictional themes, literary influences and narrative techniques. readers are offered a rich variety of readings and interpretations, revealing the texts’ multiplicity of ‘meaning’. detailed annotations accompany each story. The narrator/teller of the modern short story uses multiple methods of presentation. Narrative and Narration displays the generic flexibility of the form. Fragments of life and experience may be translated through mimesis (bates’ ‘The Ox’), diegesis (Mansfiled’s ‘The Fly’), mixed narrative modes and prominent authorial intervention (Maugham’s ‘The Lotus eater’), symbolism (Joyce’s ‘Araby’) or a complex frame narrator (Conrad’s ‘The Lagon’). This collection is a must read for students of English literature at the college and university levels.
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