Synopses & Reviews
The fiction section from Laurence Perrine?s all-time bestselling introduction to literature, this concise, authoritative text provides a complete overview of the essential elements of fiction, along with a diverse selection of stories to illustrate them. This reliable, well-written classic has introduced thousands of students to the serious study of fiction, yet it remains vital and compelling for today?s readers, presenting the most important and engaging stories available in a single collection. The section on three featured writers, James Joyce, Flannery O?Connor, and Joyce Carol Oates, includes three stories by each author, as well as essays by noted critics on their works.
Review
"Please do not change any of the above sections of STORY AND STRUCTURE: this book is perfect...This book is consistently my first choice for "Writing about Literature" composition courses and for short fiction courses. Thank you for a superb textbook."
Review
"Please do not change any of the above sections of STORY AND STRUCTURE: this book is perfect'This book is consistently my first choice for "Writing about Literature" composition courses and for short fiction courses. Thank you for a superb textbook."
Review
"Really and truly; I see no need for improvement; in my judgment, the text is the best I've ever used for any course."
Synopsis
The fiction section from Laurence Perrine's all-time best-selling introduction to literature, this concise guide has introduced thousands of students to the major elements of fiction, and continues to present the most important and engaging stories available in a single collection. The section on two featured writers, James Joyce and Flannery O'Connor, gives three stories by each author as well as essays by noted critics on their works.
About the Author
Thomas R. Arp received a B.A. in English from the University of Michigan (1954) and a Woodrow Wilson Fellowship to Stanford University. In 1955-1956, he produced educational television for the University of Michigan. He received an M.A. from Stanford University in 1960 and a Ph.D. from Stanford in 1962. He has taught at Bowdoin College, Princeton University, University of California at Berkeley, Hull University (England), and since 1970 at Southern Methodist University. His volume, THE FORM OF POETRY, was published by Macmillan in 1966, and he received a Fulbright lectureship at University of Bucharest (Romania) in 1969-1970. Arp joined Laurence Perrine in preparing revised editions of SOUND AND SENSE, STORY AND STRUCTURE, and LITERATURE: STRUCTURE, SOUND, AND SENSE beginning in 1982. He became sole author of the books in 1997, and was joined as co-author by Greg Johnson in 2002.Greg Johnson received an M.A. in English from Southern Methodist University and a Ph.D. in English from Emory University. Dr. Johnson is the author of books of fiction, poetry, criticism, and biography, including the recent story collections, LAST ENCOUNTER WITH THE ENEMY (Johns Hopkins, 2004) and WOMEN I?VE KNOWN: NEW AND SELECTED STORIES (Ontario Review,2007), the novel STICKY KISSES (Alyson Books, 2001), and two books on Joyce Carol Oates: INVISIBLE WRITER: A BIOGRAPHY OF JOYCE CAROL OATES (Plume, 1999), and JOYCE CAROL OATES: CONVERSATIONS 1970-2006 (Ontario Review, 2006).
Table of Contents
Preface. Part One: THE ELEMENTS OF FICTION. 1. Reading the Story. Reviewing Chapter One. "The Most Dangerous Game" by Richard Connell. "Hunters in the Snow" by Tobias Wolff. Understanding and Evaluating Fiction. Suggestions for Writing. 2. Plot and Structure. Reviewing Chapter Two. "The Destructors" by Graham Greene. "How I Met My Husband" by Alice Munro. "Interpreter of Maladies" by Jhumpa Lahiri. Suggestions for Writing. 3. Characterization. Reviewing Chapter Three. "Everyday Use" by Alice Walker. "Miss Brill" by Katherine Mansfield. "How Far She Went" by Mary Hood. Suggestions for Writing. 4. Theme. Reviewing Chapter Four. "The Lesson" by Toni Cade Bambara. "Gooseberries" by Anton Chekhov, translated by Constance Garnett. "A Worn Path" by Eudora Welty. "Once Upon a Time" by Nadine Gordimer. Suggestions for Writing. 5. Point of View. Reviewing Chapter Five. "Paul's Case" by Willa Cather. "The Lottery" by Shirley Jackson. "The Jilting of Granny Weatherall" by Katherine Anne Porter. "Hills Like White Elephants" by Ernest Hemingway. Suggestions for Writing. 6. Symbol, Allegory, and Fantasy. Reviewing Chapter Six. "The Rocking-Horse Winner" by D.H. Lawrence. "Young Goodman Brown" by Nathaniel Hawthorne. "Where Are You Going, Where Have You Been?" by Joyce Carol Oates. "A Very Old Man with Enormous Wings" by Gabriel Garcia Marquez, translated by Gregory Rabassa. Suggestions for Writing. 7. Evaluating Fiction. Reviewing Chapter Seven. "The Drunkard" by Frank O'Connor. "The Kugelmass Episode" by Woody Allen. "The Guest" by Albert Camus, translated by Justin O'Brien. Suggestions for Writing. 8. Evaluating Fiction. Reviewing Chapter Eight. Exercise. "A Municipal Report" by O. Henry. "A Jury of Her Peers" by Susan Glaspell. Exercise. "Roman Fever" by Edith Wharton. "A New Leaf" by F. Scott Fitzgerald. Suggestions for Writing. Part Two: TWO FEATURED WRITERS: JAMES JOYCE AND FLANNERY O'CONNOR. Introduction. "Araby", "Eveline", and "The Boarding House" by James Joyce. Critical perspectives on Joyce. From Dubliners: A Pluralistic World by Craig Hansen Werner. From "Araby" by J.S. Atherton.From "Eveline" by Clive Hart. From " ' The Boarding House' Seen as a Tale of Misdirection" by Fritz Senn. "A Good Man is Hard to Find", "Good Country People", and "Greenleaf" by Flannery O'Connor. Critical perspectives on O'Connor. " A Reasonable Use of the Unreasonable" and "Letter to a Professor of English" by Flannery O'Connor. "A Good Man's Predicament" by Madison Jones. "On 'Good Country People'" by Sarah Gordon. "On 'Greenleaf'" by Gilbert H. Muller. Suggestions for Writing. Part Three: WRITING ABOUT FICTION. Why Write about Literature? II. For Whom Do You Write? III. Two Basic Approaches. 1. Explication 2. Analysis. IV. Choosing a Topic. 1. Papers That Focus on a Single Story. 2. Paper of Comparison and Contrast. 3. Papers on a Number of Works by a Single Author. 4. Papers on a Number of Works with Some Feature Other Than Authorship in Common. V. Proving Your Point. VI. Writing the Paper. VII. Writing In-Class Essays or Essays Tests. VIII. Introducing Quotations (Q1-Q10). IX. Documentation. 1. Textual Documentation (TD1-TD4). 2. Parenthetical Documentation (PD1-PD6). 3. List of Works Cited. 4. Documenting Electronic Sources. Stance and Style (S1-S6). XI. Grammar, Punctuation, and Usage: Common Problems. 1. Grammar (G1-G2). 2. Punctuation (P1-P5). 3. Usage (U1-U2). XII. Writing Samples. 1. Fiction Explication: "Darkness" in the Conclusion of "The Child by Tiger." 2. Fiction Analysis: The Function of the Frame Story in "Once Upon a Time." Part Four: STORIES FOR FURTHER READING. "Civil Peace" by Chinua Achebe. "Cathedral" by Raymond Carver. "The Swimmer" by John Cheever. "American History" by Judith Ortiz Cofer. "The Bride Comes to Yellow Sky" by Stephen Crane. "A Rose for Emily" by William Faulkner. "The Gilded Six-Bits" by Zora Neale Hurston. "A Contract" by Ha Jin. "Bartleby the Scrivener" by Herman Melville. "The Cask of Amontillado" by Edgar Allan Poe. "No One's a Mystery" by Elizabeth Tallent. "A&P" by John Updike. "The Child by Tiger" by Thomas Wolfe. Glossary of Terms. Copyrights and Acknowledgements. Index of Authors and Titles.