Andy's Short Story Exploration Extravaganza

  Edgar Allen Poe and Brander Matthews have a very narrow definition for what qualifies as a short story. According to Matthews, a short story “shows one action, in one place, on one day. A Short-story deals with a single character, a single event, a single emotion, or the series of emotions called forth by a single situation. Sherman Alexie challenges this notion with his short story “This Is What It Means to Say Phoenix, Arizona” which does a deep dive into the lives of both Victor and Thomas. One does not come away from this story with the complete picture of a single situation like Matthews describes, but an idea of what the lives of our main characters have been like leading up to the beginning of the story, and of what their lives might be like after the story’s conclusion.  The most striking difference between Alexie’s and Matthews’ interpretation of a short story is the myriad of flashbacks Alexie includes in “This Is What It Means to Say Phoenix, Arizona.” Most of the...

Is Octavia Butler correct in her interpretation of Bloodchild as a coming-of-age story about love between two very different beings? If not, what is Bloodchild truly about? Octavia Butler opens her afterword with the bold and decisive statement “It amazes me that some people have seen “Bloodchild” as a story of slavery. It isn’t”. She then goes on to claim it is simply a story about love between two very different beings and Gan’s coming-of-age. But just because this was the author’s intention when writing “Bloodchild”, it doesn’t necessarily mean that is the right way to interpret the story. If a story is written with one intention, but everyone takes away something completely different from that story it ultimately doesn’t matter what the author meant the book to be about. “The Death of the Author” is a famous essay that states the original intentions of an author should have no weight in the interpretation or criticism of a text. In this case I am analyzing “Bloodchild” as it exists...

 As I watch her be whisked away by the machine, I feel something I’ve never felt so greatly before. I don’t know whether to be enraged at her ignorance or upset that I’ve no one to talk to.  I told her to visit me not only to try and help her see the truth about this place, but just to have someone to share my experiences with, share my… well, they’re beyond ideas. I guess there’s not a word for them. Yet there she goes, so sure of herself and her superficial bland ideas that the machine has programmed her to blurt out every now and then. She doesn’t know anything yet she thinks the world is made for her. I suppose it is made for people like her: complacent and uninspired servants of the machine who don’t care about anything besides their daily lectures and repetitive meals. Why is it that nobody but me can see any problem with this, it’s so blatantly wrong and unnatural, I guess that’s just how they were all born.  I owe my mother my life, but what life is there to owe i...