Combining Individual Stories Into Larger Wholes

Part I of Essay
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 ....

Part II of Essay
.... 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 referred to as a model of the modern short story cycle) the community is localised in a particular place, a small town. In this essay I will discuss thi ....