The Modernist Short Story
What makes a story short and who are the genre's 20th Century Modernist Masters
Every book begins with a story, but every short story begins with a character.
Whether that character is the observer of “The Mark on the Wall” in Virginia Woolf’s eponymous short story, or the characters of Jabez Stone, Mr. Scratch and Daniel Webster in Stephen Vincent Benet’s “The Devil and Daniel Webster,” the character is the thing in a short story. That character’s point of view is what will drive the story forward.
Like a novel the character has to want something. It doesn’t matter whether it’s an answer or an object, but that thing must be attainable in a relatively short time period in order to make the most of the short story framework. In the process of reaching that desired outcome or object, there must be some kind of conflict. This requires the character to come to some kind of conclusion, a decision that will either drive her toward the achievement of the goal or want, or a decision that will allow her to let the desired thing slip away. This means somehow the character must change, either internally or externally. This might manifest in a different setting, such as moving to a new location, or the setting itself might appear different because of an emotional change in the character.
Finally, just like a novel there should be a climax of some kind. The difference is, in a novel an ambiguous resolution is perfectly acceptable, whereas in a short story the climax is key, even if the character realizes she’ll have to try another day. In a short story an ending can’t go on and on. It must close the story loop in one or two sentences.
Every book begins with a story, but every short story begins with a character.
Now that you know what a short story is, let’s look more closely at the two examples above.
Woolf’s “The Mark On The Wall” is a masterpiece of brevity. The whole thing can be read aloud in under twenty-two minutes. As the narrator sits in the firelight thinking about the effects of war she notices a mark on the wall above the mantle. She wonders about its origin. That is her want, but her want leads her to a deeper want, an understanding of the nature of mankind and why some believe that war is necessary. Is it the technology that results from wars? Is it thinning the population. Which then makes her wonder about the tendency for technology to dehumanize people. This leads to wondering why she’s such a bad housekeeper, the role of Shakespeare in humanizing people, and the alienation of modern man. Meanwhile, the “mark on the wall” is imagined to be all sorts of things. Again and again in this stream of consciousness musing Woolf returns to the mark and her inability to identify its source. Even as she’s thinking about the habits that define her, but which have changed as she has aged, and changed even more since her parents and grandparent’s time, she decides there are many “illegitimate freedoms” that come as things change. Yet ultimately she sees there may be hope in all the change. She mulls over how a tree must feel as it tries to determine the changing sensations around it just as she is doing in trying to figure out what the mark on the wall is.
I like to think of the tree itself; first the close dry sensation of being wood; then there is the grinding of the storm; then the slow, delicious ooze of sap. I like to think of it, too, on winter's nights standing in the empty field with all leaves close-furled, nothing tender exposed to the iron bullets of the moon, a naked mast upon an earth that goes tumbling, tumbling, all night long. The song of birds must sound very loud and strange in June; and how cold the feet of insects must feel upon it, as they make laborious progresses up the creases of the bark, or sun themselves upon the thin green awning of the leaves, and look straight in front of them with huge diamond-cut red eyes. . . .One by one the fibres snap beneath the immense cold pressure of the earth; then the last storm comes and, falling, the highest branches drive deep into the ground again. Even so, life isn't done with; there are a million patient, watchful, lives still for a tree, all over the world, in bedrooms, in ships, on the pavement, lining rooms where men and women sit after tea, smoking their cigarettes. It is full of peaceful thoughts, happy thoughts, this tree.
She finally realizes what the mark is when her thoughts are interrupted by someone announcing he’s going out for a paper. It is only at that moment that she realizes what the mark is, and this revelation is so unexpected that she sort of realizes how futile war is. I’ll let you read it to find out what that mark was.
Although most people know Stephen Vincent Benet’s narrative poem “Johns Brown’s Body” there’s also a significant following for Benet’s short story masterpiece, “The Devil and Daniel Webster.” This brief work is probably as relevant today as it was when it was first published in 1936.
The story is more complicated than it may appear, and that’s part of the magic of it. When a farmer named Jabez Stone says he’d sell his soul for just something to turn out right, who should appear but “Mr. Scratch” aka the Devil himself. There’s your want and the start of the conflict required in a short story. (Incidentally, church goers may remember the name Jabez from the Book of Chronicles as a man known for his prayer asking God for blessings and protection. Stone is an apt last name for this stubborn man. Hence, it’s sort of funny that Benet’s Jabez asks the Devil to help him.)
Negotiations are held and the pair agree that the farmer will have seven years of prosperity before the Devil takes his soul. Time marches on and Jabez Stone prospers, but the day comes when Mr. Scratch comes to claim the agreed upon prize. The farmer doesn’t want to fulfill his part of the bargain. He wants a few more years. The Devil says, wait a minute, we had a contract. There will be no extension. Jabez Stone hires the famous real life lawyer Daniel Webster (1782-1852) to serve as his counsel in the breach of contract suit. For those who don’t know who Daniel Webster was, think of him as the Marc Elias or Neil Katyal of yesteryear.
Webster’s argument is that Jabez Stone is an American citizen, and “no American citizen may be forced into the service of a foreign prince. We fought England for that in '12 and we'll fight all hell for it again!" The Devil counters that he is also a U.S. citizen, having been around since even before the U.S. became a country. They agree to a jury trial, but Mr. Scratch wants to select the judge and jury. Webster is fine with that "so long as it is an American judge and an American jury." Naturally, Mr. Scratch selects a jury of traitors, pirates and unethical politicians, all of whom appear, "with the fires of hell still upon them." Benet’s genius is in giving nearly all these jurors the names of famous real life rogues, so his reader knows what’s at stake and how a jury like this might view the case. The judge is also given a familiar name. He’s the man who presided over the Salem Witch Trials.
Yet the Devil’s (aka Mr. Scratch’s) pride will get the better of him. He assumes the rogues gallery of criminals he has on the jury will decide in his favor. Yet Webster’s defense is so eloquent and irrefutable that the stacked jury decides for Jabez Stone. The jury was swayed by Webster’s admission that while there have been wrongs done in the course of American history, something new and grand had emerged from it and that "everybody had played a part in it, even the traitors." Furthermore, Webster says, people like Jabez Stone may have "got tricked and trapped and bamboozled, but it was a great journey," and that was something "no demon that was ever foaled" could ever understand. The Devil concedes and tears up the contract.
In this setting the point of view changes and as the story comes to its close the reader learns a great lesson not only about honor, humility and history, but about the power of even bad things to manifest changes for the better.
Find yourself a copy of these stories and the many others by great 20th Century Modernists like Katherine Anne Porter, J.D. Salinger, Ernest Hemingway, James Joyce, F. Scott Fitzgerald and others. It will add some much needed respite to your busy life.