Gender And Genre In Short Fiction
Gender and Genre in Short Fiction
Assessment 2
Analytical Essay
What are some of the pleasures of reading a short story? To what extent are those pleasures influenced and affected by issues of gender in terms of the reader, the author, and the stories themselves?
What are some of the pleasures of reading a short story? To what extent are those pleasures influenced and affected by issues of gender in terms of the reader, the author, and the stories themselves?
The joy of the Short Story dates back to the time of oral tradition. Aboriginal folklore tells of stories handed down from generation to generation since the dreamtime. These are the origins short stories although technically they became short stories when written down. “Egyptian papyri, dating from 3000 to 4000 BC., reveal how the sons of Cheops regaled their father narrative.”
The Old Testament has countless short stories originally part of oral tradition, such as Adam and Eve, Samson and Delilah, Noah and the Great Flood, and Jonah and the whale. These short stories entertained, educated and engaged and still do so even to this day. These short stories were written down roughly between 1000BC to 100BC and were written in Hebrew and Aramaic. J. M. Bickham in “Writing the Short Story A Hands- On Program" states that to qualify as a short story, the tale must be committed to paper in an language others can understand” , so according to this it was not until this period of time that these ancient biblical tales could be construed as short stories.
Sampson and Delilah is the classic example of the female seductress bringing about the downfall of the innocent yet mighty man. “danger and betrayal emanate from the city and are most often manifested in an ambiguously attractive and dangerous woman who sets out to seduce the hero in order to prevent him from discovering that she is the...
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