What is short story?
Shot story is a story
which is short in size. Short story is a form or genre having rules of its own.
Short story is as story with a fully developed theme but significantly shorter
and less elaborate than a novel. The shortest short story may be of no more
than a page or two in length; and the longest may run to over hundred pages. At
some point it becomes impossible to draw line between long short story and
short novel. Some modern critics have revived the word ‘novella’ to avoid the
use of awkward phrase ‘long short story’.
The novella is different
from short story in its characteristics- As short story has less varied setting
and a simpler plot. Short story has less words and it can be read in one
sitting.
Some long short stories
are:-
·
D. H. Lawrence’s-
St. Mawr, The Caption doll, The Virgin and the Gypsy
·
Henry James’s-
The turn of the screw
·
Somerset
Maugham’s- Rain
Short story is the product
of 19th century and the first half of 20th century. This
was the great time for short story. The increase of literary in Britain and
America after about 1800 created a demand for periodical literature of all
kinds literally hundreds of magazines appeared during that time. Many novels
appeared in serial form being printed monthly or fortnightly parts. Some had
religious or instructive tone like ‘Sunday at home’, ‘The Quiver’ and
‘Household words’ started by Dickens in 1850. Others offered simple
entertainment, but all used short stories as the main was of filling pages;
thus offering the market to both good and bad writers. And short story
flourished it became the chief literary food of millions of readers and
remained so until the second quarter of our present centaury when magazines began
to fade away with the rise of broadcasting and the development of paperback
publishing.
Maugham suggest short
stories, one of the oldest time of literature in the Bible, The Old Testament
in full of wonderful stories which modern writers have borrowed or imitated
over and over again. Even older than this are the stories to be found in the
histories of Herodotus. Herodotus was a historian but since to have been more
concerned with the strangers or the human interest of his history that with its
actual truth. Herodotus was matter of simple direct storytelling. While the
writers of old Testament were concerned with more serious matters of history,
religion and philosophy: It would be impossible in one short chapter to give
anything like a history or a survey of the short story as a form of literature.
Gay De Maupassant (1850-93):
He is universally accepted as master.
Maupassant’s approach is that of the naturalistic writer, direct detaches
almost scientific. A tragic little story is placed before us without comment
and without much attempt at psychological depth. He wrote hundreds of tales. The
Necklace and Paste are among his tales.
Paste is
about a set off pearls which were believed to be worthless imitations but which
were in-fact immensely valuable.
The
Necklace on the other hand was of imitation diamonds which the girl who borrowed it believed it to be real.
But having lost it, she went to desperate lengths to obtain enough money to
repay his owner; she learned that the diamonds in fact were worthless
imitations.
The similarity of the two stories hides the
profound difference in a treatment. The necklace makes the good starting point
for anyone who is interested in the technique of the short story.
Henry James (1843-1916):
He was born in America, spent much life in
England and took British nationality in 1915. James approach less simple, the
characters of the Cousins, Arthur and Charlotte Prime, skilfully revealed in
conversations by Maupassant which reminds James has ambition as a dramatist.
James also wrote short story on Necklace.
Edgar Allan Poe (1809-49):
Poe
was born in Boston, Massachusetts and lost his parents in early childhood. His guardians
sent him to school in England, then to the University of Virginia, there he
developed bad habits and spoiled his life. After sometime he was sent to
military academy from which he was expelled at age of 22. He turned to
journalism. Despite of failures, difficulties and quarrels to develop he
extraordinary imaginative and poetic gifts which he possessed. 3 years later he
got married to his 14 year old Cousin Virginia Clemm, whom he seems to have
deep love and since affection. In next 10 years Poe won reputation as a poet,
critic and writer of strange stories. He always quarrelled with his friends and
ruined his health by drinking. At 38, his wife died due to difficult illness
and Poe returned to his life of dissipation.
Poe
was the father of the detective stories; it developed in later 19th
century. They are written in the strong and simple prose of a practical
journalist and they keep to the rules which we now regard as traditional in the
detective tale. Poe deserves a high place in the history literature. Even
detective stories do not deserve part in serious literature but millions of
readers had much pleasure reading them. Poe’s tales appeared in various
magazines especially the ‘Southern
Literary Messenger’. A collection of his best stories was ‘Tales of Mystery and imaginations’. His
detective imagination was cleared/ proved in ‘The Murderers in the Rue Morgue’, The Mystrie of Marie Rogel’, ‘The Gold Bug’.
The
horrible, the psychopathic, the fantastic, the mad are aspects which appealed
the Poe’s romantic imagination. Through which he places fantasies like the fall off the house of Usher and The Masque of the Red Delhi. In order to know this, one should know
Terror School’ and the unit of the ‘Gothic’- feature of romantic revival in
Britain and Europe, which fascinated Poe in his young age.
It is very difficult to choose favourites from
Poe’s tales of fantasy. R.J. Rees own favourite is The Black. His some works are-
The Cask of Amontillado: It describes against a background of Venetian carnival,
how a murderer leads his victim to the cellars to taste a particularly fine
Sherry, then chains him into a corner and starts to bury him alive behind a
brick wall. The victim, at first slightly drunk didn’t realise what is
happening. Gradually he cools down and as he does he becomes aware that his
companion, far from being engaged in a rather horrible joke, is clearly
serious. This little story is in many ways a model of what short story should
be-neat, difficult and full of atmosphere.
The Pit and the Pendulum: It is a nightmare of suspense and horror based on the
tortures of the Spanish Inquisition.
William Wison: It is
partly based on Poe’s memories of his schooldays at Stoke Newington in England,
is a clever and frightening surprise story in which young man is haunted by his
own ghost or double a theme, incidentally, treated with equal dramatic power in
Schubert’s famous song, Der Doppelganger.
The Gold Bug: It is
about a small boat caught in the great whirl pool off the west coast of Norway;
In fact the maelstrom is a comparative mild affair. In Poe’s imagination
however it becomes enormous is whirling funnel of black water; the storm is a
splendid example of Poe’s skill in creating an atmosphere of terror and suspense.
The Descent into the Maelstrom: It is a story
of great originality both its matter and its manner being, as it were half way
between Poe’s dream like horrors and the more down to earth style.
The Black Cat: The
narrator is a drunkard, married to a gentle and devoted wife and bitterly
conscious of his own failures as a human being. The couple has a black cat to
which the wife becomes devoted while the husband develops an unreasoning hate
to it. Gradually his hate of the animal becomes madness and he wings to notice
that a white mark on the cat’s throat is shaped like a gallows. One night,
having returned home in an excited and drunkard state, the man is driven to
attack the cat with as axe. His wife in a pathetic effort to save her pet;
stands in his way and is herself struck down and killed. Appalled at what he
has done, the man takes his wife’s body to the cellar, where he hides it in a
corner, over which he builds a wall, as did the murderer in the Cask of
Amontillado; After this he feels a sense of satisfaction and security,
particularly as the black cat, which he had so feared and hated, seems to have
disappears. Sometime later the search for missing woman begins.
He uses an artificial, almost poetical
language which well suits the fantasy of his subjects, Poe’s style at its worst
is easy to parody but so is the style of any great artist of marks
individually.
Rudyard Kipling:
Kipling
was born in 1865 in Bombay. He was the son of professor who afterwards became
curator of the Lahore museum. After five years he was sent to England, first to
live with a private family in Southeast. The women who looked after him was a narrow
religious fanatic from whom he learned about the angry god of the Old Testament
and the punishment waiting for the wicked boys. He was lonely, unhappy and very
often afraid; there was no one to love and understand him. Then he went to
School mainly for son of officers. But by this time boy has developed he tough
skin to hide his sensitivity. Here his literary skills and inventiveness began
to show themselves, and were recognised by some teachers. He lived through two war
Boer war and the Great War (1914-18). At 17 he returned to India and worked as
assistant editor of ‘The civil and military
gazette’ and then in weekly ‘The
Pioneer’. The work stalky and co. (1889) the school represented all that
was worst in public school tradition- bullying, cruel practical jokes and
frightening absence of culture. Yet young Kipling seems to have accepted the spirit
of the place happily, indeed h looks at school day happily. If we judge Kipling
from this; there was often an element of cruelty and insensitivity in his tales
and sometimes an imperialistic tone which may reader have fond unpleasant.
Kipling
was considerable genius, apart from drama, poems and novels he wrote hundreds
of short stories. Most of them were collected under books line Plain Tales from the hills, soldiers three,
The Phantom Rickwas (three of them in 1888), many inventions (1893), Debits
and Credits (1926), the jungle book,
just so stories. Obviously much will depend upon own tastes. Maugham published
by Macmillan and entitled ‘A choice of
Kipling’s prose.’ In consists, story chosen by Maugham, written by Kipling
in various time of his life, carefully choosing
the variety of his work. It is his variety of subject matter and setting, which
shows mastery as a writer of short story. Importance is the fact that he
matured early as writer. One of was best earlier tales are:
Without
Benefits of Clergy: It is a
simple and moving tale of a young Englishman’s love for Muslim girl in India,
and how it ended with a tragic death of their baby and of the girl herself. It
is possible to condemn the story as too sentimental but many readers would not
find it so. The conversation fills the greater part of the story is written in
a strange style that some people will find it irritating while others may
consider it sincere and poetic: It is t he result of Kipling’s habit of
translating the speech of his Indian characters literally into English. More
difficult is the English of some of the stories in soldiers three.
Soldiers
three: The three soldiers of the title; Leoyard, Orthesis and Mulvany are
simple and uneducated men serving in the army in India; Most of the stories are
told in their own language, which is far from being Standard English. Leoyard
uses a dialect of his home country Yorkshire, which is difficult for every
English reader. This is pity because some of the soldiers’ three stories are
among Kipling’s best. They give fascinating picture of India under England’s
rule. Most modern readers will find it sad and disturbing picture of
colonialism- and strange mixture of selfish inhumanity with a seemingly honest
desire to improve life for the native population.
Some
of them served India well as shown in one of the Kipling’s Tales called William
the conqueror. The girl hero who devoted herself saving the life of Indian
babies during the great famine may be a creature of Kipling’s imagination; but
one would like to think that she had prototype in reality.
Other
stories without the setting of India, which may interest the new of Kipling.
Two of them are based on the ideas: the belief of reincarnation.
The finest story in the world: In this Charlie
Mears, a young man who hopes to become a writer finds, his mind possessed by memories
of a time when he was roman galley slave. So vivid are these memories that the
narrator of the story offers to pay him for his stories, which he believes it
would be ‘the finest story in the world’. Luckily, for Charlie but not for his
journalist friend, the former falls in the love with the charming girl. This
sets him firmly back in his own time, so that the exciting and frightening
memories of his past lives simply fade away and once again he is a very
ordinary young man.
Wireless: In it
Kipling uses a similar idea; in this case a young chemist mysteriously
possessed by the mind and spirit of a great poet (Keats). The newly invented
wireless takes a very small part in the tale, but Kipling is using it as a
symbol for the mysterious communication between the living and the dead in
which he seems at times to have believed.
Mary postgate: It was
written in 1914-18, it is a grim story full of psychological truth. It is about
the English woman who finds a German airman who has been shot down during a
raid over England but who is still alive. In a moment of unreasoning hate she
sees him as responsible for the death of the English boy whom she has nursed in
childhood, and shoots him cold blood. It is a shocking tale, well planned to
shoot the cruel wickedness of war, yet the reader is left with the practiced to
publish or republish his works in books of mixed stories and poems. His last
such book is ‘Limit and Renewals' (1932). It also contained the church that was
an Antioch.
The church that was an Antioch: An interesting and living young Roman officer, Valens
become involves with Peter and Paul and other members of the new religion. In a
short fight he is struck down and dies speaking of his murderers, “Don’t be
hard on them… They get worked up….They doesn’t know what they are doing…” Paul recognising the words of Jesus at his crucifixion, suggests that they to baptise Valens as he lies dying in the arms of the girl slave who loves him; but Peter
deeply moved at the familiar words in the mouth of the young Roman, silences him
with the words, “Think you that one who has spoken those word needs such as we
are to certify him as any God?”
Kipling showing his short stories that he is
a great master of this kind of literature cannot be denied whatever
unsympathetic critics may have said about him.
D. H. Lawrence (1885-1930):
He
is 10 years younger than Kipling. Lawrence was the son of coal miner. Rowing up
around the beginning of the century into an England where inequality and social
injustice were thought natural and unavoidable he was able, with the
encouragement and support of his mother, he got trained as a teacher. He
started as a poet, but later it was in novel and above all in the short story;
that he found his ideal means of expression. In his twenties Lawrence fell in
love with the aristocratic Frieda Von Richthofen, who was at the tie married to
a professor of English at Nottingham. The coupe escaped to Frieda’s native Germany,
and were able to marry after Frieda’s divorce in 1914. Due to war madness he
and Frieda had to suffer much at the hands of people who thought they were
patriots. They were able to leave England and spent their life abroad specially
in Mexico and Italy. In the eyes of the general public he was still no more
than the author of sensational novel.
It
has taken 40 years for Lawrence to be generally recognised as one of the great
literary figures of the century and one who is at his best in his short stories.
There is no doubt that Lawrence possessed that indefinable quality which we
call genius. He was a man and a writer whose impact on the world has been tremendous
through unrealised. At his worst he can be tedious annoying but the nature of
the short story obliged him to concentrate on the qualities of writing which he
found most difficult namely precision, economy and design. So the reader would find
at once the power and excellence of a novella like St. Mawr or a short story
like the caption’s Doll.
Before
Lawrence’s short story had been an entertainment depending mainly upon its plot
but in Lawrence the plot is mainly of secondary importance, and what matters is
situation or atmosphere or sensuous evocations of nature.
Odour of
chrysanthemums:
This tale shows Lawrence at is best, at his most typical. It is a deeply moving
story of the death of a miner in a pit accident, and the better effect of this
upon his mother, his wife and his children. The whole atmosphere and setting of
the tale are those Lawrence’s own childhood- a childhood described in similar harsh
terms in the early chapter of Sons and Lovers. Early in the story Elizabeth
Bates, the Collier’s young wife waiting for his return from work. As usual
drinking in the pub ‘The prince of Wales.’ The two children are restless and the
little girl puts her lips on the ragged bunch of chrysanthemums. Learning from neighbours that there has been accident in a mine, and bates is either injured
or dead, Elizabeth sends the children upstairs, with mother-in-law. At last the
noise of man is heard in the yard outside, and the dead man is brought home.
The manager of the mine explains how Bates was killed instantly when the part
of the pit roof fell on him. As they place the body in the little parlour one of
the men accidentally knocks over the vase of chrysanthemums and the children
wakes up.
The white
stocking:
It is a powerful study of sexual jealousy which introduces one of his favourite ideas- that on the hidden conflicts between the civilised and intellectual side
of man and the primitive and emotional side where man becomes a mere channel
for that life force which Lawrence thought of as the driving power of universe.
Some critics called this thought as not nonsense but dangerous nonsense. Over
and over again Lawrence’s stories on the one hand and the dark and primitive
life force on the other. The white stocking there is Elsie’s husband, Ted
Whiston and her former lover Sam Adams; In the fox it is Nellie’s rather colourless friend, Banfard, and her over, Henry Grenfel mysteriously linked with
the sexual symbol of the fox; In St. Mawr the magnified horse who gives the story
its name seems to stand for the life force and it is to follow the horse that
Lou and her mother leave the pleasant and Cultured Rico, ho may be said to
represent civilised man. The newcomer to Lawrence must read ‘The Prussian
Officer’, ‘England, my England’ and ‘The Virginia and the Gipsy’ he first being
one of his very earliest stories the second a little latter and the third
belonging to his maturity.
The Prussian
Officer:
It was published in 1914; it is set against a background to which Lawrence had
no doubt been introduced by Frieda. It is about a strange love hate
relationship between a hard and arrogant cavalry officer and the young soldier
servant who eventually murders him.
England
my England:
It is about Winifred marshal and her husband, Egbert; the latter, a pleasant
but intellectual upper class young man, is a typical Lawrence symbol, balanced
in the story by Winfred’s father, the embodiment of physical and emotional
energy and earthy common sense. The Lawrence’s stories set in the war period
but ‘England, my England’ is the only one which includes an actual battle
scene.
The Virginia and
the Gipsy:
Some 40,000 words in length, is a novella rather than a short story in the
strict sense. It is certainly Lawrence’s best tales and should be read by
anyone who hopes to understand him. The usual theme is here: on the other side
‘dead’ life represented by Yvette’s clergymen father her awful grandmother and
her shallow friends; on the other dark, elemental life force personified by Joe
Boswell, the Gipsy. But despite of his (Lawrence’s) simple view of the world
was a great writer. Consistently the Virginia and the Gipsy is not a piece of
propaganda but a work of art and a story which can be enjoyed for its character
its conversation and its situations even though the reader may be unmoved by
Lawrence’s philosophy.
Somerset Maugham (1874-1965):
His
books were criticised by Lawrence. The narrator in his stories was the factious
Ashenden, how is not the same person as Maugham himself. Many of Maugham’s
critics have regarded him as low and cynical view of human nature. More serious
critics have ignored him or treated him as a mere entertainer.
Maugham’s
story range in length from novella like the letter, down the sketches, two or
three pages in length like raw material. Then varied settings reflect something
of Maugham’s own love of travel, and their wide variety of character shows is
knowledge of men and women of the most different sorts. Many of his earlier stories
are based on his own experience though he tells them through the mouth of the
imaginary. Telling a story in the first person singular was in fact the form
which Maugham particularly favoured. He was a highly successful writer of his
kind of narrative.
The summing up
(1938):
In this play he had sadly remarked that the critics of this country have
troubled him seriously and never considered him for his writing. Any man
whether clever and young or stupid and old, who wrote about the short story
without considering Maugham would be behaving in very strange way, for there
can be no doubt that his tales have been read with pleasures by millions of
people who would place him among the best of all short-story writers,
Maugham
cannot be great creative genius as Lawrence but he is wonderful writer and
notable man. Maugham has been above all the believer in the short story with a
plot at a time when others thought that plot was unimportant. Maugham has no
message for the world; he does not set up as a prophet or even a psychologist.
The Verger: This seems to
be a particular elegant example of the plotted short story, as well as an
illustration of Maugham’s favourite attitude as a cynical and detached observer
of the strange ways of the world. The verger as St. Peter’s, a famous London
church as Albert foreman.
He has held his position and done his work for
16 years. The old vicar, with whim foreman had been terms; the new vicar was a
believer in efficiency. He was shocked to learn that Albert despite his good service
in the past, could not read, it seemed to the vicar that this was intolerable
in a verger; and so Albert was, in the nicest possible way, dismissed from his
job. Depressed and anxious at being unemployed, he had the idea of using his
small savings to start a small tobacconist’s shop. It succeeded and after time
he was able to open another shop in another street. Eventually Albert foreman turned the owner of
a whole group of shops, a man of considerable wealth. His bank manager
suggested that this should market that this should be invested in the stock
market and when the arrangements had been made he invite Albert into the office
to sign the necessary papers. At this point the former verger had to admit that
he could not read and the story concludes. As well as being a highly successful
practitioner of the art of the short story, Maugham was the great admirer of
those whom he considered masters of the art, especially Chekhov and Maupassant.
·
The
period of 1865-1965, time of Kipling and Maugham was the great time of short
stories. Katherine Mansfield and H. E. Bates deserve special attention because
they are specialist in writing of short stories.
Joseph Conrad (1857-1924):
He
is most important among English writer in having learnt English as a foreign language.
His mother tongue as polish and it was his career as a sailor his novels are
based on his own experience at sea and his knowledge of the Far East was what
made him famous. He wrote numbers of short stories of set against the same
background of Maugham the word novella or a long short story is perhaps most
appropriate for the stories of Conrad’s.
‘The
heart of darkness’ is 40,000 in length. The most admired of Conrad’s
work are ‘Typhoon’s’, ‘Youth’ and ‘The Rover’.
H.G. Wells:
He was a brilliant writer of short
stories along with novels The Time Machine is very good introduction to Well’s
specially for young readers. It’s easy to read and good example of early
science fiction. He offers a look into the future which is even more
frightening then ‘Brave New World’ and less than ‘Nineteen Eighty Four’.
In early part of century writers were
influenced by the era Russian short story writers ‘Pushkin’, ‘Gogol’,
‘Turgenev’, ‘Tolstoy’, and ‘Chekhov’.
O. Henry:
W.S. Porter was the real name of O.
Henry; he lived from 1862-1910. He was journalist and popular on both the sides
of the Atlantic. He had the qualities of best journalism, good plot and extreme
directness and economy of style.
A.E. Coppard (1878-1957):
He was like the great Russians’ in
building stories on situation and atmosphere rather than plot. Coppard
published 100 short stories in lifetime beginning
with, ‘Adam and Eve’ and ‘Pinch Me’, in 1921 but didn’t
have any popular success. His work was too quite in tone, attracted large
numbers of readers but he has been greatly admired by an expert judge of the
short stories. The one who enjoys the work of Katherine will find attraction to
the work of A.E. Coppard.
Katherine Mansfield Beauchamp:
She was born in New Zealand in 1888 and
died in France in 1923 due to tuberculosis. Her father was business man, he
sent her to London for education. Returning new land she was unhappy at home
and persuaded her father to give her money to go back to London and began to
write. In short life she became the most remarkable short story writer of her
generation, she was considered among 3-4 important short story writer of the present
centaury. She made a unfortunate marriage to see for book what it felt like she
was writing. In 1911 she published a book
of sketches with the title ‘In a German Pension’. In 1912 she got attached to
Middleton Murray, these two events took her to literary life in London.
She met Alduos Huxley and D.H. Lawrence and other well-known figures of that
time. Perhaps the most important event in Katherine’s life as a writer was the
death of her younger brother killer in France. He as the person she loved the
most and this took her toward their past to childhood in New Zealand. There was
the inspiration for her most of the writings of next 7 to 8 years. Her stories
which appeared in book were ‘Bliss’
(1921), ‘The Garden Party’
(1922), after her death ‘The Dove’s
nest’ (1923) and ‘Something
Childish’ (1924). In 1918 she divorced her first husband and got
married to Middleton Murray. She was already suffering from TB and died at age
of 34.
It is not possible to give a useful idea
of Katherine’s stories by summarising the plot; plot is indeed the least
important element. She takes some small incident of everyday life- some
personal meeting and conversations and remarks the scene and the people,
usually in the space in few pages. She has a sharp eye in details, the texture
of a dress the effect of light on the tree, the colour of flowers in a vase.
Children appear in most of her stories and she writes of them with an
understanding that came from memories of her own childhood.
The
Voyage- It is nothing more than the description of a
little girl Fenella, being taken for short sea voyage with her grandmother.
Fenella’s mother has just died and the child is going to stay with her
grandparents. His simple situation made seen through the child’s eye makes one
of the best and most typical of Katherine’s stories.
Perhaps the most difficult task of the
short story writer is to describe scenes and setting in fewest possible words.
Example: the scene of Fenella with his grandmother and father, through the dock
area of the ship.
Life
of Ma Parker-
the London Street along which the poor old women sick and sad is struggling.
At
the Bay:
In the beginning seen a wonderful sketch rather longer than the most of her
tales of family life in a small seaside community in New Zealand. In is not
artistic skill and brilliance which shows Katherine genius. She also has the
qualities of humanity and compassion which makes a good writer.
The
Daughter of the late colonel:
It is great to read for a new reader. This seems to be best among best
short stories ever written in Chekhov's tradition. It has a real plot but its
picture of the two ageing sisters, Josephine and Constantia and their pathetic,
helplessness after the old man’s death is a masterpiece of tragic- comic writing.
H. E. Bates (1905):
He
was a successful writer since 1926; his first story was ‘The Two Sisters’. At that time Bates was working as a
journalist in the midland town of Kettering. During the war he served as a
Squadron Leader in the Royal Air Force, first in England, then in Burma which
provides the setting for ‘The purple pain’ and ‘The jacaranda tree’.
But the most direct result of his was experience was the novel ‘Fair stood the wind for France (1944)’
an exciting and moving story about the crew of an R.A.F plane shot down over
France. He wrote it under the pen name ‘Flying officer X’ brought him well
deserved fame, but also some disadvantages in that there are people who still
think him as a war writer without realising that he has also written nearly twenty novels of various kinds as
well as short stories. Anyone who tries to describe the importance of H.E.
Bates as a short story writer must have two difficulties.
1.
The
first that of deciding how long a short story can be: some of Bates novels are
short enough to be called novella or long short stories while some of the short
stories are almost of novel length.
2.
And
secondary is of making any general statement about his work without being
misleading. Bates is such a varied writer that it is hard to believe that ‘the
darling buds of May’ is by the author as ‘fair stood the wind for France’.
Comparing him with D.H. Lawrence would
concluded as bates to be second Lawrence by the short story entitled ‘the Mawr’
and this impression would be confirmed by reading ‘Dulcima’ or ‘the wild cherry
tree’. For Bates certainly has a Lawrence like power of inventing earthly
characters and setting them in a atmosphere of emotional tension.
He is to be compared with Maugham as a
master of irony and sophistication. It is suggested that Maugham’s hint can
also be known in ‘Same tree, Same place’ published in the cherry tree
(1968).
Same
tree, same place:
It is about a middle aged spinster, Miss Treadwell, who lives alone and almost
without the money just managing to keep up an appearance of middle class respectability.
While sitting in the park one day, hoping to pickup an old newspaper left by someone
who can affords suck luxuries she makes the acquaintance of Mr. Thornill, a man
of her own age for a time they become friendly and she for a time they become
friendly and she begin to have romantic feeling for him. His feeling for her
was very different but he never learnt about them because it soon become clear
the Mr. Thornill far from being the gentle man she has supposed to be drunkard
the meeting in the park come to the end and poor Miss. Treadwell is as lonely
as ever. It is a touching little story and like so many of the best modern
short stories it has no plot- only a small incident which Bates sets before us
as a slice of life.
The
grass god:
It is novella of some 25000 words. It was published in 1953. The particular aspect
of love reveals the grass god is not pleasant. The girl Sara is cool and
calculating. The man, Fritzgerald is a rick land owner a country squire who owns
a fine house and large estate, which he runs with the heatless efficiency of
the worst type of 19th century capitalist. His farm workers hate him
and he hates them he is obsessed with the idea of improving the agricultural
value of his land- is specially grassland and this is why the girl nickname him
the grass god. The two of them meet while Sara – an intelligent but cold city
girl- is holidaying with her relations and in Fritzgerald’s village. Fritzgerald
(who was married and lives with his wife) feel overwhelming sexual desire for
the girl and they form a habit of going to the great mansion at the centre of
the park which was empty from the years and of making love in small attic
bedroom, as the summer goes on, he becomes more and more madly in love while
Sara becomes cooler and cooler she has in-fact only allowed the affair to
develop because she is interested in the aristocratic and romantic surrounding
of the place and in the money and power Fritzgerald seems to have. In the end Sara
decided to leave having made it clear that she had never felt any real love for
him. Fritzgerald returns to his wife Cordelia, who feels no more love for him than
Sara did. And to his obsessive concern with the land and the grass- No hopelessly
withered after a long dry summer. Such a bare outline can give little idle of
the power and interest of this story. The atmosphere of a great country estate
and mansion house empty and dead is skilfully build up. The characters of the
man and the girl of the several secondary people in the story are cleverly
developed in long passages of conversation.
As in nearly all of Bates stories, there
is peculiarly English feeling for seasons, weather and landscapes as well as
for characters.
The
nature of love:
It is one of the most impressive volumes o long short stories ever to appear in
England. Bates style is fluent and comparatively simple. H. E. Bates can be
considered as the English imaginative writer ill give the truest picture of the
feel of ordinary life in England- According to R. J. Rees.
Writer
|
Work
|
Gay De Maupassant
|
Paste
The necklace
|
Henry James
|
The Necklace
|
Edgar Allan Poe
|
The Cask of Amontillado
The Pit and the Pendulum
William Wison
The Gold Bug
The Black Cat
|
Rudyard Kipling
|
Without Benefits of Clergy
The Finest Story of the World
Wireless
Mary Postgate
The Church that was an Antioch
|
D. H. Lawrence
|
Odour of Chrysanthemums
The White Stocking
The Prussian Officer
England, my England
The Virginia and the Gipsy
|
Somerset Maugham
|
The Summing Up
The Verger
|
Joseph Conrad
|
The heart of darkness
Typhoon’s
Youth
The Rover
|
A.E. Coppard
|
Adam and Eve
Pinch me
|
Katherine Mansfield
|
The Voyage
Life of Ma Parker
At the Bay
The daughter of the late colonel
|
H. E. Bates
|
Same tree, Same place
The grass god
The nature of love
|
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