Introduction to Fiction, An

List of contents

Preface  
To the Instructor  
About the Authors  
 
** Indicates new selections
 
Fiction
 
Interview with Amy Tan
 
1. Reading a Story  
The Art of Fiction
Types of Short Fiction
    W. Somerset Maugham, The Appointment in Samarra  
    Aesop, The North Wind and the Sun  
    ** Bidpai, The Tortoise and the Geese
    Chuang Tzu, Independence  
    Jakob and Wilhelm Grimm, Godfather Death   
Plot  
The Short Story 
    John Updike, A & P  
Writing Effectively
Writers on Writing 
    John Updike, Why Write? 
Thinking About Plot
Checklist: Writing About Plot
Writing Assignment on Plot  
More Topics for Writing  
Terms for Review 
 
2. Point of View  
Identifying Point of View
Types of Narrators
Stream of Consciousness
    William Faulkner, A Rose for Emily  
    Edgar Allan Poe, The Tell-Tale Heart
    ** Virginia Woolf, A Haunted House
    ** Eudora Welty, Why I Live at the P. O.
    James Baldwin, Sonny's Blues  
Writing Effectively
Writers on Writing
    James Baldwin, Race and the African American Writer  
Thinking About Point of View
Checklist: Writing About Point of View
Writing Assignment on Point of View  
More Topics for Writing
Terms for Review
 
3. Character
Types of Characters
    Katherine Anne Porter, The Jilting of Granny Weatherall  
    Katherine Mansfield, Miss Brill  
    ** Naguib Mahfouz, The Lawsuit 
    Raymond Carver, Cathedral  
Writing Effectively
Writers on Writing  
    Raymond Carver, Commonplace but Precise Language  
Thinking About Character
Checklist: Writing About Character
Writing Assignment on Character
More Topics for Writing
Terms for Review
 
4. Setting  
Elements of Setting
Historical Fiction
Regionalism
Naturalism
    Kate Chopin, The Storm  
    Jack London, To Build a Fire  
    T. Coraghessan Boyle, Greasy Lake  
    Amy Tan, A Pair of Tickets  
Writing Effectively
Writers on Writing  
    Amy Tan, Setting the Voice  
Thinking About Setting
Checklist: Writing About Setting
Writing Assignment on Setting
More Topics for Writing
Terms for Review
 
5. Tone and Style  
Tone
Style
Diction
    Ernest Hemingway, A Clean, Well-Lighted Place  
    William Faulkner, Barn Burning  
Irony  
    O. Henry, The Gift of the Magi  
    Ha Jin, Saboteur  
Writing Effectively
Writers on Writing  
    Ernest Hemingway, The Direct Style  
Thinking About Tone and Style
Checklist: Writing About Tone and Style
Writing Assignment on Tone and Style
More Topics for Writing
Terms for Review
 
6. Theme  
Plot vs. Theme
Theme as Unifying Device
Finding the Theme
    Stephen Crane, The Open Boat  
    Alice Munro, How I Met My Husband  
    Luke 15:11-32, The Parable of the Prodigal Son  
    Kurt Vonnegut, Jr., Harrison Bergeron  
Writing Effectively
Writers on Writing  
    Kurt Vonnegut, Jr., The Themes of Science Fiction  
Thinking About Theme
Checklist: Writing about Theme
Writing Assignment on Theme
More Topics for Writing
Terms for Review
 
7. Symbol  
Allegory
Symbols
Recognizing Symbols
    John Steinbeck, The Chrysanthemums  
    ** John Cheever, The Swimmer
    Ursula K. Le Guin, The Ones Who Walk Away from Omelas  
    Shirley Jackson, The Lottery  
Writing Effectively
Writers on Writing  
    Shirley Jackson, Biography of a Story  
Thinking About Symbols
Checklist: Writing About Symbols
Writing Assignment on Symbols  
    Student Paper, An Analysis of the Symbolism in Steinbeck's “The Chrysanthemums”  
More Topics for Writing
Terms for Review
 
8. Reading Long Stories and Novels  
Origins of the Novel
Romance
Novels and Journalism
Short Novels and Novellas
The Future of the Novel
    Leo Tolstoy, The Death of Ivan Ilych  
    Franz Kafka, The Metamorphosis  
Writing Effectively
Writers on Writing  
    Franz Kafka, Discussing The Metamorphosis  
Thinking About Long Stories and Novels
Checklist: Writing About Ideas for a Research Paper
Writing Assignment for a Research Paper
Student Paper, Kafka's Greatness
More Topics for Writing
Terms for Review
 
9. Latin American Fiction 
    Jorge Luis Borges, The Gospel According to Mark  
    Octavio Paz, My Life with the Wave  
    ** Gabriel García Márquez, A Very Old Man with Enormous Wings  
    ** Inés Arredondo, The Shunammite   
Writing Effectively
Writers on Writing  
    Gabriel García Márquez, My Beginnings As A Writer
Topics for Writing on “The Gospel According to Mark”  
Topics for Writing on “My Life with Wave”  
Topics for Writing on “a very old man with enormous wings”  
Topics for Writing on “The Shunammite”  
 
10. Critical Casebook: Flannery O'Connor  
    Flannery O'Connor, A Good Man Is Hard to Find  
    Flannery O'Connor, Revelation  
    Flannery O'Connor, Parker's Back  
    Flannery O'Connor on Writing
    From “On Her Own Work”  
    On Her Catholic Faith
    From “The Grotesque in Southern Fiction”  
Yearbook Cartoons
Critics on Flannery O'Connor
    J. O. Tate, A Good Source Is Not So Hard to Find: The Real Life Misfit  
    Mary Jane Schenck, Deconstructing “A Good Man Is Hard to Find”  
    Louise S. Cowann The Character of Mrs. Turpin in “Revelation”  
    Kathleen Feeley, The Mystery of Divine Direction: “Parker's Back”  
Writing Effectively
Topics for Writing  
 
11. Critical Casebook: Three Stories in Depth  
Nathaniel Hawthorne
    Young Goodman Brown 
    ** Nathaniel Hawthorne on Writing
    ** Reflections on Truth and Clarity in Literature
    ** Criticizing His Own Work
Critics on Hawthorne
    ** Herman Melville, Excerpt from a Review of “Mosses from and Old Manse”
    ** Edgar Allan Poe, The Genius of Hawthorne's Short Stories
Critics on “Young Goodman Brown”
    ** Richard H. Fogle, Ambiguity in “Young Goodman Brown”
    ** Paul J. Hurley, Evil Wherever He Looks
    ** Nancy Bunge, Complacency and Community
 
Charlotte Perkins Gilman  
    The Yellow Wallpaper 
    Charlotte Perkins Gilman on Writing
    Why I Wrote “The Yellow Wallpaper”  
    Whatever Is  
    The Nervous Breakdown of Women  
Critics on “The Yellow Wallpaper”
    Juliann Fleenor, Gender and Pathology in “The Yellow Wallpaper”  
    Sandra M. Gilbert and Susan Gubar, Imprisonment and Escape: The Psychology of Confinement  
    Elizabeth Ammons, Biographical Echoes in “The Yellow Wallpaper”  
 
Alice Walker  
    Everyday Use
    Alice Walker on Writing
    The Black Woman Writer in America  
    Reflections on Writing and Women's Lives
Critics on “Everyday Use”
    Barbara T. Christian, “Everyday Use” and the Black Power Movement  
    Houston A. Baker and Charlotte Pierce-Baker, Stylish vs. Sacred in “Everyday Use”  
    Elaine Showalter, Quilt as Metaphor in “Everyday Use”  
Writing Effectively
Topics for Writing on “Young goodman brown”  
Topics for Writing on “The Yellow Wallpaper”  
Topics for Writing on “Everyday Use”  
 
12. Stories for Further Reading  
Chinua Achebe, Dead Men's Path  
** Sherman Alexie, This Is What It Means to Say Phoenix, Arizona
Margaret Atwood, Happy Endings  
Ambrose Bierce, An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge  
Willa Cather, Paul's Case  
Anton Chekhov, The Lady with the Pet Dog  
Kate Chopin, The Story of an Hour  
Sandra Cisneros, The House on Mango Street  
Ralph Ellison, Battle Royal  
Zora Neale Hurston, Sweat  
James Joyce, Araby  
** Franz Kafka, Before the Law  
Jamaica Kincaid, Girl  
Jhumpa Lahiri, Interpreter of Maladies  
D. H. Lawrence, The Rocking-Horse Winner  
Bobbie Ann Mason, Shiloh  
** Lorrie Moore, How To Become A Writer
Joyce Carol Oates, Where Are You Going, Where Have You Been?  
Tim O'Brien, The Things They Carried  
Tillie Olsen, I Stand Here Ironing  
Tobias Wolff, The Rich Brother  
 
13. Writing about Literature
    Read Actively
        Robert Frost, NOTHING GOLD CAN STAY
    Plan Your Essay
    Discover Your Ideas
        Sample Student Prewriting Exercises
    Developing a Literary Argument
    Writing a Rough Draft
        Sample Student Paper (Rough Draft)
    Revise Your Draft
    Some Final Advice on Rewriting
    Document Sources to Avoid Plagiarism
    The Form of Your Finished Paper
    Spell-Check and Grammar Check Programs
 
 
14. Writing About a Story
    Read Actively
    Think About the Story
    Discover Ideas
        Sample Student Prewriting Exercises
    Write a Rough Draft
    What's Your Purpose? Common Approaches to Writing about Fiction
    Topics for Writing
 
 15. Writing a Research Paper
    Browse the Research
    Choose a Topic
    Begin Your Research
    Evaluate Sources
    Organize Your Research
    Refine Your Thesis
    Organize Your Paper
    Write and Revise
    Maintain Academic Integrity
    Acknowledge All Sources
    Documenting Sources Using MLA Style
    Reference Guide for Citation
 
16.  Critical Approaches to Literature
    Formalist Criticism
    Biographical Criticism
    Historical Criticism
    Psychological Criticism
    Mythological Criticism
    Sociological Criticism
    Gender Criticism
    Reader-Response Criticism
    Deconstructionist Criticism
    Cultural Studies
 
Terms for Review
 
Acknowledgements
Photo Acknowledgements
Index of Major Themes
Index of Authors and Titles
Index of Literary Terms

About the author

X. J. Kennedy, after graduation from Seton Hall and Columbia, became a journalist second class in the Navy (“Actually, I was pretty eighth class”). His poems, some published in the New Yorker, were first collected in Nude Descending a Staircase (1961). Since then he has written six more collections, several widely adopted literature and writing textbooks, and seventeen books for children, including two novels. He has taught at Michigan, North Carolina (Greensboro), California (Irvine), Wellesley, Tufts, and Leeds. Cited in Bartlett's Familiar Quotations and reprinted in some 200 anthologies, his verse has brought him a Guggenheim fellowship, a Lamont Award, a Los Angeles Times Book Prize, an award from the American Academy and Institute of Arts and Letters, an Aiken-Taylor prize, the Robert Frost Medal of the Poetry Society of America, and the Award for Poetry for Children from the National Council of Teachers of English. He now lives in Lexington, Massachusetts, where he and his wife Dorothy have collaborated on four books and five children.
 
Dana Gioia is a poet, critic, and teacher. Born in Los Angeles of Italian and Mexican ancestry, he attended Stanford and Harvard before taking a detour into business. (“Not many poets have a Stanford M.B.A., thank goodness!”) After years of writing and reading late in the evenings after work, he quit a vice presidency to write and teach. He has published three collections of poetry, Daily Horoscope (1986), The Gods of Winter (1991), and Interrogations at Noon (2001), which won the American Book Award; an opera libretto, Nosferatu (2001); and three critical volumes, including Can Poetry Matter? (1992), an influential study of poetry's place in contemporary America. Gioia has taught at Johns Hopkins, Sarah Lawrence, Wesleyan (Connecticut), Mercer, and Colorado College.
 
He is also the co-founder of the summer poetry conference at West Chester University in Pennsylvania. From 2003-2009 he served as Chairman of the National Endowment for the Arts. At the NEA he created the largest literary programs in federal history, including Shakespeare in American Communities and Poetry Out Loud, the national high school poetry recitation contest. He also led the campaign to restore active and engaged literary reading by creating The Big Read, which has helped reverse a quarter century of decline in U.S. reading. He currently divides his time between Washington, D.C. and Santa Rosa, California, living with his wife Mary, their two sons, and two uncontrollable cats.

Summary

Kennedy/Gioia's An Introduction to Fiction, 11th edition continues to inspire students with a rich collection of fiction and engaging insights on reading, analyzing, and writing about stories.
                                            
This bestselling anthology includes sixty-five superlative short stories, blending classic works and contemporary selections.  Written by noted poets X.J. Kennedy and Dana Gioia, the text reflects the authors' wit and contagious enthusiasm for their subject.  Informative, accessible apparatus presents readable discussions of the literary devices, illustrated by apt works, and supported by interludes with the anthologized writers.  This edition features 10 new stories, three masterwork casebooks, revised and expanded chapters on writing, and a new design.
 

Product details

• Authors: Dana Gioia, X. J. Kennedy
• Publisher: Pearson Academic
• Languages: English
• Product format: Paperback / Softback
• Released: 01.01.2010
• EAN: 9780205687886
• ISBN: 978-0-205-68788-6
• No. of pages: 832
• Weight: 650 g
• Series: Longman; Longman
• Subject: Guides > Law, job, finance > Training, job, career