ENGL 153
January 25th
Lecture 3: Short Fiction: Stories in Miniature
Required readings: The Bear Came Over the Mountain, Passing Wind, The Colonel’s Son
Genre: something that denotes types or classes of literature
● Genres into which literary works have been grouped at different times are very numerous,
and the criteria on which the classifications have been based are highly variable
Roberto Bolano
● A prolific Chilean author and essayist known primarily in North America for 2666
● This spareness in the narrative often gives the artistry in a good short story higher
visibility than the artistry in the more capacious and loosely structured novel
Narrator in The Colonel’s Son
● Stream-of-consciousness narration merging with the horror genre
● Does The Colonel’s Son qualify as a horror story? It has the characteristics of a horror
story, but does it count? Does the fact that it occurs in the narrator’s memory make it less
of a horror story? What is it about the storytelling that makes this scary?
● The ‘stream of consciousness’ is the name applied to a mode of narratio that undertakes
to reproduce the full spectrum and continuous flow of a character’s mental process, in
which sense perceptions mingle with conscious and half-conscious thoughts, memories,
expectations, feelings and random associations
○ We assume that the speaker is talking to someone, but by the end realize that this
is a stream of consciousness that produces a monologue, undermining the horror
element of the story
Unreliable Narrators
● The fallible or unreliable narrator is one whose perception, interpretation, and evaluation
of the matters he or she narrates do not coincide with the opinions and norms implied by
the author, which the author expects the alert reader to share
● For an argument, start with: (In this essay I will argue that) … the unreliable narrator in
Roberto Bolano’s “The Colonel’s Son” undermines the impact of the short story’s horror
elements because it fails to generate dramatic tension.
Lydia Davis
● One of the most influential short stories writers in English Literature
● Stories often extremely short, sometimes qualifying as “flash fiction,” and focused on
human behavior and social etiquette
Passing Wind and Flash Fiction
January 25th
Lecture 3: Short Fiction: Stories in Miniature
Required readings: The Bear Came Over the Mountain, Passing Wind, The Colonel’s Son
Genre: something that denotes types or classes of literature
● Genres into which literary works have been grouped at different times are very numerous,
and the criteria on which the classifications have been based are highly variable
Roberto Bolano
● A prolific Chilean author and essayist known primarily in North America for 2666
● This spareness in the narrative often gives the artistry in a good short story higher
visibility than the artistry in the more capacious and loosely structured novel
Narrator in The Colonel’s Son
● Stream-of-consciousness narration merging with the horror genre
● Does The Colonel’s Son qualify as a horror story? It has the characteristics of a horror
story, but does it count? Does the fact that it occurs in the narrator’s memory make it less
of a horror story? What is it about the storytelling that makes this scary?
● The ‘stream of consciousness’ is the name applied to a mode of narratio that undertakes
to reproduce the full spectrum and continuous flow of a character’s mental process, in
which sense perceptions mingle with conscious and half-conscious thoughts, memories,
expectations, feelings and random associations
○ We assume that the speaker is talking to someone, but by the end realize that this
is a stream of consciousness that produces a monologue, undermining the horror
element of the story
Unreliable Narrators
● The fallible or unreliable narrator is one whose perception, interpretation, and evaluation
of the matters he or she narrates do not coincide with the opinions and norms implied by
the author, which the author expects the alert reader to share
● For an argument, start with: (In this essay I will argue that) … the unreliable narrator in
Roberto Bolano’s “The Colonel’s Son” undermines the impact of the short story’s horror
elements because it fails to generate dramatic tension.
Lydia Davis
● One of the most influential short stories writers in English Literature
● Stories often extremely short, sometimes qualifying as “flash fiction,” and focused on
human behavior and social etiquette
Passing Wind and Flash Fiction
