Introduction

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10

Analyzing Stories

Stories have a special place in most cultures. Sharing stories strengthens the bonds of family and community: Elders relate family and cultural history through stories; children learn lessons through fables and parables; people of all ages use stories to express feelings, work out conflicts, and entertain themselves and others. Reading stories stimulates our feelings and imagination, allowing us to escape our everyday routine and become aware of the wider world around us. Stories can lead us to look at others with sensitivity and, for a brief time, to see the world through another person’s eyes. They can also lead us to see ourselves differently, to gain insight into our innermost feelings and thoughts.

The short stories presented in this chapter may in some respects remind you of the essays about remembered events you read and wrote in Chapter 2. As you may recall, essays about remembered events convey significance primarily through vivid descriptive detail showing people in particular places engaged in some kind of dramatic action. Fictional stories work the same way, except that the people in them are called characters, places are called setting, the dramatic action is called plot, and the significance is called theme or meaning.

Good stories tend to be enigmatic in that they usually do not reveal themselves fully on first reading. That is why it can be so enjoyable and enlightening to analyze stories and discuss them with other readers. Even very short stories can elicit fascinating analyses. For example, Ernest Hemingway wrote this six-word story, which he reportedly claimed was his best work:

For sale: baby shoes, never worn.

Upon first reading, you might think you have gotten everything there is to get from the story. But consider the following questions:

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It looks like an ad, but who would try to sell baby shoes, and why? What is the relationship between the person trying to sell the shoes and the baby for whom the shoes were originally bought?
If the person is a parent, what does selling the shoes suggest?
If the person is someone unrelated to the baby, how did that person get the shoes, and why is he or she selling them?
Could the person selling the shoes be someone who wanted a baby but lost or never had one? Or is he or she more likely to be someone who simply bought the wrong size shoes and didn’t return them?
Who would be a potential buyer for the shoes?
If the story is about the death of a child, how old was the child, and what were the circumstances of his or her death? If there is no death involved, what are the circumstances: Is the baby unable to walk or wear shoes? Was he or she taken away from the person who placed the ad? Or were the shoes simply a bad purchase?
Where and when was the ad written? (In a country where there are land mines? In a time of severe economic depression?)
Why is the story so short? Could the brevity say something about emotion? Could the fact that the story is written in the form of an advertisement suggest something about commercialism?

As these questions imply, even the shortest story can be analyzed and discussed in ways that enhance its possible meanings and enrich your reading experience.

In this chapter, we ask you to write an analysis of a story. Analyzing the selections in the Guide to Reading that follows will help you learn the basic features and strategies writers typically use when writing about stories. The readings, as well as the questions and discussion surrounding them, will help you consider strategies you might want to try out when writing your own analysis.