1989

CLASSIC SHORT STORIES

Literature

8 30-min. Programs Grades 9-12 Teacher's Guide

Great short stories must be carefully plotted, with a well-established conflict leading to a definite climax. Some authors begin with a character; others, with a situation; still others weave a story from a theme that interests them. Each of the exemplary works from notable short story writers focuses on a particular literary concept vital to the craft of good short story writing. Specific concepts examined include an authors use of time, point-of-view, focus, conflict/crisis/climax, theme, characterization, tone, and setting. 1. Babylon Revisited by F. Scott Fitzgerald In this tragic love story, a writer recalls his romance with an American girl in Paris. Charlie, a GI with literary ambitions, falls in love with Helen, a beautiful Parisian dilettante. They marry, settle down and soon have a daughter. All goes well in their marriage until Charlies failure to sell his writing causes him to turn to the bottle and Helen becomes bored with her social life. The story ends in tragedy when Charlie accidentally locks Helen out of their Parisian quarters during a rainstorm and she dies of pneumonia. Charlie goes home to the United States, where he finally gains success as a writer. He returns to Paris in an attempt to regain custody of his daughter, whom he left in his sister-inlaws care. This made-for-educational television adaptation of Fitzgeralds story stars Elizabeth Taylor, Van Johnson, Walter Pidgeon and Donna Reed. 2. An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge by Ambrose Bierce Simple, matter-offact prose describes the preparations for Peyton Farquhars execution by hanging from the Owl Creek Bridge during the American Civil War. The description extends to include some insight into his consciousness and his final desperate thoughts of escape: The hang rope has broken and Farquhar valiantly attempts to free himself in the swirling water beneath the bridge. He struggles to evade the bullets of his pursuers and makes his way through a tangled forest back to his home. As he finally drags himself to his doorstep where his wife awaits, we are jolted back to reality: Peyton Farquhar is, after all, dead; neck broken, his body swings gently from side to side beneath the timbers of the Owl Creek Bridge. 3. White Nights by Fyodor Dostoevsky An old mans flashbacks tell this storywithin-a-story about his chance encounter with a beautiful young woman and the nights they spent together, the white nights of his life. The curious circumstance of their meeting draws them together. She makes him promise not to fall in love with her, since she is in love with another man. However, he does fall in love when he learns the man she loves has not kept a promise to return and marry her. Just when he is able to persuade her that this man will not return and she should accept his love, the man appears to keep his promise and takes her away. White Nights develops the theme of romantic dreaming vs. creative activity so integral to Dostoevskys work. 4. Vessel of Wrath by W. Somerset Maugham Set on an island in the Pacific which Maugham calls Baru, this delightful comedy-drama is the story about the efforts of Martha Jones, a prim, missionary woman, to reform Ginger Ted, a carnal, ribald beachcomber. Ted lives on a periodical remittance from England, his only remaining link with civilization. Eventually, he is drawn back into the bourgeois pale by the schoolmarmish sister of the islands British missionary. The poison of their romance is implanted when the two are accidentally thrown together for a few hours on a lonely reef. Insightful performances by Elsa Lanchester, Charles Laughton and Tyronne Guthrie bring characters of brilliance, vigor and psychological verisimilitude to life. 5. The Stranger by Victor Trivas This gripping suspenser tells a melodramatic tale of political intrigue and terror in a small New England college town. An escaped Nazi war criminal named Franz Kindler arrives, assuming the identity of a professor. He not only lands a job at the college, but also marries a prominent society woman. Soon, Kindler learns that a strangera U.S. federal agent for the War Crimes Commissionis in town asking questions about him. Baroque story touches culminate in a garish finale, when Kindler is impaled on a sword at the top of a churchs clock tower. This version of the smooth, proficient and somewhat languorous short story stars Edward G. Robinson, Loretta Young and Orson Welles. 6. Valley of the Giants by Kenneth Earl This old-fashioned logging epic, a virile and muscular adventure story starring Kirk Douglas, depicts the quintessential struggle of man against nature. A fast(Continued)

These programs are licensed through WVPT and may be obtained on videotape from your school or division media center.

CLASSIC SHORT STORIES

(Continued)

talking, iron-jawed stalwart arrives in the Northwest to stake claims on the giant redwood timber-lands occupied by a band of peaceful Quaker homesteaders in turn-ofthe-century California. Our hero becomes a paragon of virtue who switches from dirty deeds to lofty ideals as he is won over by the Quakers, who hold the majestic sequoias in awe. 7. Penny Serenade by Martha Cheavens The comic muse very frequently gives way to tears in this unabashedly nostalgic story about a couples courtship, marriage and the death of their child. The plot takes us from brittle, sophisticated comedy to out-and-out emotional drama as the high and low points of a marriage are recollected by a woman contemplating divorce. Students of all ages will sniffle and sob when the couples adopted daughter takes part in her first school play . . . knowing full well that the teachers promise, she can be an angel next year, is laden with bittersweet irony. Kudos to Irene Dunne and Cary Grant for stellar, tear-jerking performances. 8. Tulsa by Richard Wormser In this action-paced saga starring Susan Hayward and Robert Preston, a fiery Oklahoma ranch girlthe daughter of a cattle ownerfights oil-land tycoons in the early 1930s. Overcome by oil fever, she later becomes an oil baroness herself. When a forest of derricks, oil tanks and equipment is set ablaze, she ultimately loses the empire she battled so valiantly to build . . . becoming poorer but wiser.