Combining Individual Stories Into Larger Wholes
Beginning of paper
The inclination to combine individual stories into larger wholes goes way back into oral tradition. In the literary world this kind of story linkage is known as a short story cycle, or sequence (various other names exist but these have caught on). It is not a collection of isolated stories but c ....
Middle of paper
.... in which the reader successively realises underlying patterns of coherence by continual modifications of his perceptions of pattern and theme” (p.148). Each story in the cycle is thus not a closed unit. Although a story can be picked out and read as an independent short story, its meaning intensifies and sometimes changes when read with its “neighbours”. The reader usually feels a sense of community developing as he reads on. In Sherwood Anderson’s book Winesburg Ohio (often referre ....
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Word count: 3032
Page count: 12 (approximately 250 words per page)
