The Simplicity of a FableYou are probably acquainted with some of the fables credited to the Greek slave Aesop (about 620-560 B.C.), whose stories seem designed to teach lessons about human life.
I was astonished to see him in Bagdad, for I had an appointment with him tonight in Samarra.Ībout This FableThis brief story seems practically all skin and bones that is, it contains little decoration.For in a fable everything leads directly to the moral, or message, sometimes stated at the end (moral: Haste makes waste).In The Appointment in Samarra, the moral isnt stated outright, it is merely implied.How would you state it in your own words? Take a moment to discuss this with your seatmate and come up with a statement of moral. Then the merchant went down to the marketplace and he saw me standing in the crowd and the came to me and said, Why did you make a threatening gesture to my servant when you saw him this morning? That was not a threatening gesture, I said, it was only a start of surprise. The merchant lent him his horse, and the servant mounted it, and he dug his spurs in its flanks and as fast as the horse could gallop he went. I will go to Samarra and there Death will not find me. She looked at me and made a threatening gesture now, lend me your horse, and I will ride away from this city and avoid my fate. The Appointment in Samarra Death speaks: There was a merchant in Bagdad who sent his servant came back, white and trembling, and said, Master, just now when I was in the marketplace I was jostled by a woman in crowd and when I turned I saw it was Death that jostled me.
(Samarra, by the way, is a city sixty miles from Baghdad.)
Somerset Maugham (1874-1965), and English novelist and playwright, is retelling an Arabian folk story. Before defining the short story, well consider some related form.Ancient forms whose origins date back to the time of word-of-mouth storytelling, the fable and the tale, are relatively simple in structure in them we can plainly see elements also found in the short story (and in the novel).To begin, here is a fable: a brief story that sets forth some pointed statement of truth. In some works we see more deeply into the minds and hearts of the characters than we ever see into those of our family, our close friends, or even ourselves.įables, Parables, and TalesModern literary fiction in English has been dominated by two forms: the novel and the short story. Reading literary fiction (as distinguished from fiction as a commercial productthe formula kind of spy, detective, Western, romance, or science fiction story), we do not keep reading mainly to find out what happens next.Indeed, a literary story demands both attention and insight-lending participation. In fact, it may offer more deeply satisfying entertainment than other novels. To read a novel by the Russian master Dostoevsky instead of a James Bond thriller is somewhat like playing chess instead of a game of tic-tac-toe.Its not that a great novel does not provide entertainment. Certain fiction, of course, calls for closer attention. We expect from fiction a sense of how people act, not an authentic chronicle of how, at some past time, a few people acted.Ībout FictionAs children, we used to read (if we were lucky and formed the habit) to steep ourselves in romance, mystery, and adventure. But the factual information in a historical novel, unlike that in a history book, is of secondary importance.In fiction, the facts may or may not be true, and a story is none the worse for their being entirely imaginary. The Short StoryEnglish Literature and CompositionĪbout FictionFiction (from the Latin fictio, a shaping, a counterfeiting) is a name for stories not entirely factual, but at least partially shaped, made up, imagined.It is true that in some fiction, such as a historical novel, a writer draws on factual information in presenting scenes, events, and characters.