Short Stories Author Notes

SHORT STORIES – AUTHOR NOTES

Kate Chopin (1851-1904)

Background

Born to prosperous Irish/French-Creole parents in St. Louis, Missouri, she was well educated and independent. She married at 19 and raised 6 children in New Orleans until her husband died when she was 32. She returned to St. Louis and began to write.

Literary Style/Contributions

Her short stories focused on the life of French Creoles in Louisiana. Her theme was the repression of women in Victorian America. Her novel, The Awakening, published in 1899, concerned a New Orleans woman who left her marriage and defied Victorian expectations of motherhood. The book was considered immoral and she was condemned and shunned for writing it.

Literary Impact

Though unrecognized in her lifetime, Chopin was rediscovered during the women’s movement of the 1960’s and 70’s and she is now seen as a literary pioneer – 50 years ahead of her time.

James Thurber

Biographical Info:

-generally acknowledged to be the foremost humorist of the 20th Century

-grew up in Columbus, Ohio; attended Ohio State University

-worked for The New Yorker magazine after moving East

-his career peaked in the 1940’s, despite failing eyesight from a boyhood accident

-in addition to his literary works, he also collaborated on a Broadway play

-Thurber’s humor often turned on the chaos of contemporary American life

-he focused on “the little man” who cannot quite assert himself in a world where women seem self-assured

Flannery O’Connor (1925-1964)

Background

She was born in Savannah, Georgia and lived most of her life with her family in nearby Milledgeville. She began writing in 1948 and was diagnosed with lupus, a painful wasting disease, two years later. She only wrote for a total of 16 years until her death, but she had a positive attitude about her illness. She graduated from the Women’s College of Georgia in 1945 and went to the Writers Workshop of Illinois at the University of Iowa. She was a very disciplined writer, and sat at her desk for 2 hours each day, whether or not she wrote anything.

Literary Style/Contributions

Her first novel was Wise Blood (1962), followed by a collection of short stories, A Good Man is Hard to Find (1955). Her second novel, The Violent Bear it Away, was published in 1960. Her central theme was the abstract idea of good and evil and she targeted smugness, optimism and self-righteousness with her satire. She was an unwavering Roman Catholic and her strong Christian beliefs fill her writing. She also is attracted to the grotesque and violent, and uses them to make a point about the lack of God in everyday lives.

Literary Impact

Although she has a small body of work, her place in American literature is secure.

William Faulkner (1867-1962)

Background

Born in Oxford, Mississippi, he lived and wrote there most of his life. He quit high school in 10th grade, and enlisted in the Royal Air Force of Canada when rejected by the U.S. Army for height and weight requirements. The war ended before he was commissioned. He returned home, did poorly in several English courses at college and took several short-lived jobs. In 1924 he went to New Orleans, where he met Sherwood Anderson (Winesburg, Ohio – 1919), who encouraged him to write. He wrote Soldier’s Pay in 5 months and wrote continuously from that point.

Literary Style/Contributions

He writes about the American South as a representation for universal themes of time, the passions of the human heart, and the destruction of the wilderness. He sets many of his stories in the fictional Yoknapatawpha County, Mississippi, which is very similar to the area around his hometown. He wrote The Sound and the Fury using the stream-of-consciousness narrative technique.

He writes in both tragic and comic modes and portrays the South accurately with both affection and criticism. His characters are repeated in many of his stories and some, like the Satorises and the Compsons, are drawn from people in his family. Colonel John Satoris is based on his great-great grandfather, who rose from poverty to command the 2nd Mississippi Regiment, built a railroad, wrote a best-selling novel, and was murdered on the streets by his business partner. Faulkner’s style often forces the reader to piece together events from random impressions given by a series of narrators. He can pile up clause upon clause to capture complexity of thought. He diverged from his contemporary writers – particularly Ernest Hemingway, whom he put at the bottom of his list of American authors.

Literary Impact

He won the Nobel Prize in literature in 1950 and is known as one of the greatest American authors. After winning the Nobel his best work was behind him, though he wrote many more stories and novels, always experimenting with new ideas.

William Faulkner (dates)

Make sure you cover these points in your notes.

Background

1. Where was he born and lived most of his life?

2. What was his education?

3. What was his war and work experience before he began writing?

4. Which author influenced him to write?

Literary Style/Contributions

1. What is the setting of most of his writing? (look back in the 1st paragraph)

2. What are the general themes of his stories?

3. What narrative technique does he use in The Sound and the Fury?

4. How does he portray the South?

5. Describe the source of his character, Colonel John Sartoris.

6. Describe his writing style (use of narrators, sentence structure)

Literary Impact

1. What award did he win? When?

2. How is he viewed today?

Katherine Anne Porter (1890-1980)

Background

She was born in a Texas log cabin and raised by her grandmother amid hardship and deprivation. Her first of four marriages was at age 16. Her schooling was fragmentary and she was largely self-taught as a writer. She supported herself and traveled widely as a newspaper reporter. Her first book of stories, Flowering Judas, was published in 1930.

Literary Style/Contributions

She presents Southern women caught in a web of custom and obligation. Themes include past evil and the way that evil continues to hold us captive in the present. A central autobiographical figure, Miranda, is often trying to separate the fiction of family legends from objective truth.

Literary Impact

Her novel, Ship of Fools (1962) was followed by the National Book Award and Pulitzer Prize.