Introduction to Short Stories - Kaleidoscope

A short story is a prose narrative of limited length. It organises the action and thoughts of its characters into the pattern of a plot. The plot form may be comic, tragic, romantic or satiric. The central incident is selected to manifest, as much as possible, the protagonist’s life and character, and the details contribute to the development of the plot.

The term ‘short story’ covers a great diversity of prose fiction, right from the really short ‘short story’ of about five hundred words to longer and more complex works. The longer ones, with their status of middle length, fall between the tautness of the short narrative and the expansiveness of the novel.

There can be thematic variation too. The stories deal with fantasy, reality, alienation and the problem of choice in personal life. There are three short stories and two long ones in this section representing writers from five cultures.

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Author: Gabriel Garcia Marquez (1927-2014)

Gabriel Garcia Marquez was brought up by his grandparents in Northern Columbia because his parents were poor and struggling. A novelist, short-story writer and journalist, he is widely considered the greatest living Latin American master of narrative. Marquez won the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1982. His two masterpieces are One Hundred Years in Solitude (1967, tr. 1970) and Love in The Time of Cholera (1985, tr. 1988). His themes are violence, solitude and the overwhelming human need for love.

This story reflects, like most of his works, a high point in Latin American magical realism; it is rich and lucid, mixing reality with fantasy.

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Story Summary: English & Hindi (Detailed Overview)

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Plot Summary: Key Events & Structure

Overview

The story blends magical realism with autobiography, narrated by the author who encounters Frau Frieda across decades. It opens with a dramatic wave disaster in Havana, revealing a dead woman with a serpent ring, triggering memories of Frau Frieda, a Colombian dream-seller.

Tip: Trace timeline: Havana (present) → Vienna (past) → Barcelona (middle) → Havana (closure).

Stop and Think Questions

Understanding the Text

Talking about the Text - Discussion Prompts

Discuss in groups

Appreciation & Analysis

Language Work

A. Vocabulary

Look up the meanings of the following phrases under ‘dream’ and ‘sell’ in the dictionary

dream	sell
dream on	sell-by date
dream something away	selling-point
(not) dream of doing something	sell-out
dream something up	selling price
look like a dream	seller’s market

B. Grammar: Emphasis

Read this sentence carefully

One morning at nine o’clock, while we were having breakfast on the terrace of the Havana Riviera Hotel under a bright sun, a huge wave picked up several cars that were driving down the avenue along the seawall or parked on the pavement, and embedded one of them in the side of the hotel.

The position of a word, phrase or an idea within a sentence usually indicates the emphasis it receives. Generally, the most emphatic place in the sentence is its end; the next most emphatic is its beginning; and the least emphatic, its middle.

In the sentence above the most important fact is that the huge wave embedded one of the cars in one side of the hotel. The other details of time and place are given at the beginning. The general statement of the ‘huge wave picking up several cars’ precedes the particular car which is pertinent to the theme of the story.

Let us rewrite the sentence, beginning with ‘a huge wave’ and the first part following ‘hotel’ and notice the difference in the effect.

A huge wave picked up several cars that were driving down the avenue along the seawall or parked on the pavement, and embedded one of them in the side of the hotel, one morning at nine o’clock, while we were having breakfast on the terrace of the Havana Riviera Hotel under a bright sun.

TASK

Study the following sentences and underline the part which receives emphasis

• I never saw her again or even wondered about her until I heard about the snake ring on the woman who died in the Havana Riviera disaster.
• That did not surprise me, however, because I had always thought her dreams were no more than a stratagem for surviving.
• Although she did not say so, her conversation made it clear that, dream by dream, she had taken over the entire fortune of her ineffable patrons in Vienna.
• Three tables away sat an intrepid woman in an old-fashioned felt hat and a purple scarf, eating without haste and staring at him.
• I stayed in Vienna for more than a month, sharing the straitened circumstances of the other students while I waited for money that never arrived.

C. Pronunciation

The syllable is the basic unit of pronunciation. A word may have a single syllable, such as ‘will’, ‘pen’ etc. A word, sometimes, can have more than one syllable as for instance ‘willing’ (will-ing). Each syllable contains a vowel sound, and usually one or more consonants.

You can show division of a word into syllables like this

• foolish: fool-ish (2)
• agreement: a-gree-ment (3)
• arithmetic: a-rith-me-tic (4)

TASK

• Say your name aloud and decide how many syllables there are in it. Do the same with the names of your classmates.
• Pick out five words each for two syllable, three syllable and four syllable words from the lesson.

Suggested Reading

• One Hundred Years in Solitude by Gabriel Garcia Marquez
• Love in the Time of Cholera by Gabriel Garcia Marquez

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