ENG 107- INTRODUCTION TO PROSE-FICTION

1. ENG 107- INTRODUCTION TO PROSE-FICTION The Short Story

2. The Short Story: definition • The Short Story is a narrative prose usually shorter than a novel dealing with one particular thing; • a situation, • conflict, • event, • or an aspect of a personality.

3. The Short Story: extended definition • The Short Story narrates something “new” in the sense that the language is concentrated and intensified, limited to one central event of crucial importance. • It depicts a particular situation, is concerned with a single, striking event portraying persons, things, and, or, actions only in so far as they are directly affected by this central situation. • For illustration, let us consider two short stories, Chinua Achebe’s “Vengeful Creditor” and Frank O’Connor’s “First Confession”.

4. Plot • The plot is the threadbare storyline. It is usually a short paragraph and is written in the present tense as habitual. The plot refers to the events in a story, meaning the artistic arrangement of those events. The plot has to be valid for the short story to be valid. In this sense, the plot must indicate the story of event(s), hero or heroine as the central character, villain, other characters, setting, etcetera.

5. Achebe’s “Vengeful Creditor”: the plot • Government’s introduction of free primary education creates domestic problems in the home Mr and Mrs Emenike. Ostensibly, they lose most of their servants to the programme. They eventually come across a little girl of ten, Veronica, whose widowed mother, Martha, consents to Veronica being a nurse to the Emenike’s little baby, Goddy. The idea is that Veronica, who loves school, will be put in school eventually, when little Goddy would have started school. Weeks and months pass, when Veronica thinks it is time for her to be put in school, yet nobody mentions it.

6. Continuation of the plot to Achebe’s “Vengeful Creditor” • Out of frustration, she attempts to kill little Goddy by giving him red ink so that she will be freed to resume school. When Mrs Emenike discovers her misplaced but childish attempt, it is natural that she is sent packing back to her poor mother, Martha. • “Vengeful Creditor” thus portrays the single central situation of education, free primary education; the domestic consequences it brings to homes.

7. O’Connor’s “First Confession”: the plot • Jackie, a seven year old boy, is preoccupied in his mind with the event of his first confession, ever, in a small hilly village, Montenotte. He is guilt ridden and afraid of the impending experience, and this fear is compounded by his sister, Nora, his preparatory teacher, Mrs. Ryan, and his grandmother. Jackie manages through this experience, somehow. • From this plot, we are able to identify a story of events reflecting a single, central situation, a geographical setting, a central character and other characters.

8. O’Connor’s “First Confession” • “First Confession” portrays the single central situation of the mind of a seven year old boy, Jackie, preoccupied with the event of his first ever confession to a priest. Nora, his sister, his grandmother, whom he planned to kill, and on account of whom Jackie found it difficult to go and make confession; his father, his mother, and the priest, as characters and their different situations are all depicted and situated within this single central situation of the mind of seven year old boy, Jackie’s, preoccupation with the event of his first ever confession.

9. Structure and Devices • The short story is about structure and devices than it is about theme. • It is about skills in appropriating the artistic and prose devices relevant to the short story. • Thus, the short story is about plot, setting, characters, narrative techniques, point of view, both from the angle of narration and intellectual perspective, conflict, language, etcetera.

10. Reality • The short story about reality. • What this implies is that the short story is about that which is real and concrete; • It does not accommodate fables or stories of the spiritual world. • Stories of the spiritual world are accepted in the short story in so far as they explain events in the temporal world. • Because of space, the short story is not about characterisation, which is the development of the character.

11. Language • The language of the short story is • Dense; • Precise; • Concise and; • Epigrammatic. • The short story is an art that emphasises structural devices. The beauty of “Vengeful Creditor” and “First Confession" is not as much in the stories themselves as it is in the artistic devices employed.

12. Some More Prose Devices;Setting • Setting is the geographical location of a story. A story must have a geographical location; it must be situated in a time frame and physical place. • This lends the story reality and credibility. Aside from the geographical setting, depending on the pervasive atmosphere of the story, we are able to realise other settings: • Traditional, socio-cultural, economic, moral, religious, etcetera.

13. Setting of “First Confession” &“Vengeful Creditor” • The geographical location of “First Confession” is a small Irish village called Montenotte. It is rural, hilly, and picturesque. The story is pervaded with a religious, and therefore, moral setting in addition to its geographical setting. • The geographical location of “Vengeful Creditor” is not clearly defined. The suggestion, however, is that the story is situated in an urban setting; it reflects a strong socio-cultural and economic setting.

14. Narrative Techniques • Includes description, scene and summary. • Description is precisely description, the deployment of words and expressions which evoke vivid pictures in the mind’s eye of the reader audience. • Scene is that writing that deploys conversation/dialogue by characters. • Summary is deployed to handle an otherwise large body of material. • The short story is written using a combination of the narrative techniques. The domination of one narrative technique makes for a poor short story.

15. Point of View • To identify the narrator of a story, describing any part he or she plays in the events and any limits placed upon his knowledge, is to identify the story’s point of view. • It is possible for a writer to maintain one point of view from beginning to end, but there is nothing to stop him from introducing other points of view as well which is known as intellectual perspective.

16. Point of View continued • Theoretically, a great many points of view are possible from the angle of narration: • Narrator as a participant writing in first person: • “I” as participant; • “I” as observer; a minor character; • Narrator as a non-participant writing in the third person: • Omniscient; Editorial Omniscience; all knowing, thus seeing into the minds of all the characters.

17. Ngugiwa’ThiongóA Grain of Wheat • Plot • A Grain of Wheat opens on the eve of Kenya’s Independence, and ends four days later. But very little in the novel actually happens during those four days. • Instead, the reader is taken back by numerous “witnesses” to a whole series of events in the past.

18. A Grain of Wheat has five centres of interest – Mugo, Gikonyo, Karanja, Mumbi and the white man, Thompson. • It is the eve of Kenyan Independence, and Uhuru (the day of independence from the British colonial power) demands unity; those men and women who presumably played heroic roles in preparing for the great day should come together to celebrate and affirm their determination to work for a great and prosperous Kenya.

19. But the eve of Uhuru finds all these characters plagued with guilt, shame and jealousies stemming directly from their activities during the Emergency. • These feelings threaten to mar the spontaneity and totality of their commitment to Uhuru. • If they are to participate fully, if they are to “free”, and if Uhuru is to mean anything to them, they must resolve and reconcile these warring emotions and attitudes, and redefine their relationships with each other. Each is preoccupied with analysing the motives for his actions during the Mau-Mau Emergency, resolving his inner conflicts, doubts and fears, seeking to expiate his guilt and redefining his relationship to the other characters.

20. The Implication of the Plot • Thus, we see Ngugi at his most baffling and exasperating, withholding information, supplying it belatedly when he chooses, employing flashback within flashback, reflector within reflector, point of view within point of view, cross-chronological juxtaposition of event, and impressions. • In no other novel of Ngugi, and possibly in no other African novel, is the reader asked to be more alert and to participate more fully in the unfolding process.

21. The title –A Grain of Wheat • The title of the novel comes from the book of 1 Corinthians 15: 36-38: • “Thou fool, that which thou sowest is not quickened, except it die. And that which thou sowest, thou sowest not that body that shall be, but bare grain, it may chance of wheat, or of some other grain. But God giveth it a body as it hath pleased him, and to every seed his own body.”

22. Ngugi is interested in character and in the moral choices that humans have to make and the reasons they advance for making them. • Ngugi has also found the technical means for conveying the psychological complexities of individual states of mind as well as the complexities of their social and personal relationships through controlled and sophisticated narrative structure. • Given these, therefore, all the principal characters of A Grain of Wheat can be said to reflect in their experiences, the process of birth, growth, death and rebirth implied in the Biblical quotation.

23. The Biblical passage refers to the need for continual struggle, suffering, and even death in order that the millennium may be achieved. The legendary Waiyaki’s blood had to be spilt in order that the party may be born which would eventually lead the people to the promised land. • Similarly, Mugo, Gikonyo, Karanja, Mumbi, and the others, had to undergo their own share of suffering, shame, and guilt before Uhuru.

24. A Grain of Wheat: Theme • A Grain of Wheat is a novel about the Mau Mau independence war in Kenya and the individual experiences of the Kenyan during this period. • Ngugi is concerned not merely with the wickedness of the oppressors, but with the weaknesses of the indigenous people themselves. • He is also interested in contemporary Kikuyu society .

25. A Grain of Wheat: Prose Devices • The Exploded Chronology • In Chapter 1, p.1, we are in the present with Mugo, a few days before Independence, but on p.9, the narrative shifts back more than twenty years to Mugo’s childhood. On p.11, we return to the present, but on p.13, we move even further back to the days before the Party was born, when the white invader was just acquiring a stranglehold on the country. The narrative then moves forward gradually to tell of Kihika’s exploits.

26. Flashbacks • On p.22, we are back in the present with Mugo and Gikonyo, Warui, and Wambui, the three voices from the Party who had been sent to Mugo at the end of Chapter 1, and whom we had all but forgotten during Chapter 2. The purpose of the flashbacks, so far, is to give us an insight into the origins and purpose of the Party, and Kihika’s role in it. But we still know very little about Mugo. On p.34, the narrative, leaving Mugo for a while, swings over to Gikonyo and Mumbi. We observe that relations between Gikonyo and his wife are rather strained, but we are given no explanation, although there is mention of a child.

27. Characterisation • The narrative, still in the present, shifts to Karanja and the Thompsons. Then on p.58, there is an almost unobtrusive flashback, an apparent digression, whose purpose is to illuminate the present state of the Thompson’s marriage. It reveals Margery Thompson’s frustration, which drives her into the arms of Dr. Van Dyke, and helps to explain the current lack of communication between husband and wife. On p.61, we go even further back to Thompson's undergraduate days, and learn of his former idealism which throws light on his present disillusionment with the state of affairs in Kenya.

28. Biblical Allusions • On p.67, we move back to Gikonyo’s past, but on p.69, we return to the present. On p.74, the focus shifts once more to Mugo, and back in time to the speech he made on his return from detention, then it moves forward to the present and Gikonyo. This brings us to the end of Chapter 6. In the first few chapters then, Ngugi has very skilfully introduced the main participants in the drama, giving due weight to each and using flashbacks judiciously to illuminate their present conditions.

29. Graphic Illustration