Thomas Bailey Aldrich’s three-sentence short story arouses reader interest and imagination owing to its poignant character. The author makes the story very interesting by making excellent use of words in creating the narrative. The setting, the sole female character, the character’s thoughts, and the sole dramatic event in the story make it very touching. As such, the story aptly appeals to readers’ emotions owing to its preciseness and the point approach.
For example, the author begins the story by introducing readers to the forlorn lady who sits helplessly in a house that is closed shut. This description alludes to the presence of a real threat to the woman’s safety hence her decision to tightly shut the door to her house. Readers are thus induced to pity the lady. In addition, the author describes the lady’s house as old, thereby suggesting that the woman is also old. Readers are thus motivated to feel sympathetic towards this old and lonely woman. Further, audiences are made to mentally speculate on the reason why the lady sits alone in her boarded-up house. The author does not however present the answer to this query, thus leaving the readers in a sort of suspense (Spierling and Szilas 158). Audiences can thus only form unsubstantiated hypotheses about this situation. Could the woman have been locked up inside the house by a malevolent entity? Maybe she shut herself in after sensing danger? These queries push the reader to delve further into the story.
In the second sentence, the author introduces an even more eerie concept by mentioning that the lady is aware that she is unaccompanied within the entire world. Again, audiences are made to speculate on the reason why the lady is aware of her loneliness. Readers thus generate various hypotheses to explain this phenomenon. For example, one may speculate that the lady is the sole remnant after a catastrophic event wiped out all other humans from the earth. Conversely, it may be argued that the lady is so bitter with the world that she does not feel the presence of other humans. Once more, these queries are left unanswered.
The second part of the second sentence, whereby the author reports that the lady deems all things on earth to be dead, has both literal and symbolic meanings. It may be that the lady has effectively shut out all other people from her life, thus rendering her a lonely person by choice. On the other hand, it may be that a disastrous tragedy has eliminated all human beings on earth save for the lady, thus leaving her entirely alone. Audiences can however only speculate about these possibilities without arriving at any definite answer. Such suspense and the associated interest thus compel the audience to forge on in reading the story.
In sentence three, the author introduces a twist to the mystery story by mentioning that the lady’s doorbell rings. This development effectively does away with the earlier notion that the lady is all alone in the world. Moreover, the ringing doorbell could portend danger to the lonely woman as the reason as to why she is alone has yet to be established. Readers thus become more interested and at the same time apprehensive about the ringing doorbell. The identity of the caller at the door has 2 starkly different implications. One, if the caller is a friendly benefactor to the woman, the reprieve is at hand. On the other hand, if the same malevolent power that presumably wiped out all humans from the face of the earth has come calling, the woman faces imminent doom.
As is the norm, the author does not however allow readers to go further than this point; the story abruptly ends. Audiences are thus left with mixed feelings. They are eager to learn of the identity of the caller at the lady’s door. Conversely, they are apprehensive for the lady should the caller turn out to be an unfriendly entity.
Ernest Hemingway’s even shorter story, comprising a mere six words, also arouses readers’ interests and imagination but leaves them in suspense (Hall 226).
To begin with, the first 2 words announce a ‘sale’ involving a certain item. Readers are thus motivated to become imaginative and thus seek answers to the questions of ‘What’, ‘Who’, ‘Where’, ‘When’, ‘Why’, and ‘How’. This audience interest pushes readers to wonder what the ‘sale’ is all about. Further, readers ponder over the venue of this ‘sale’. Audiences also wonder over the reason for the ‘sale’ (whether it involves new or old items). In addition, the reader ponders over the identity of the organizer of the sale. The methodology of executing the ‘sale’ is also an issue that interests the reader.
Of the aforementioned reader queries, the author only answers the one concerning the ‘What’, that is, the identity of the item on ‘sale’. As such, audiences are made to know that some ‘never used’ – meaning new shoes – are on sale. In addition, the author explains that the shoes are for babies. These explanations however leave several important readers queries unanswered. For example, the identity of the person conducting the ‘sale’ is not disclosed. The methodology of the sale is also unclear.
The aforementioned vagueness may have two varying effects on readers. Firstly, considering that the information does not highly inspire the imagination of readers, audiences are likely to lose interest in the story. This possibility is related to the fact that the items on ‘sale’ are baby shoes which do not have much appeal among audiences. On the other hand, readers who have a liking for adventure and who value baby items may go on reading the story.
The author however cuts any readers’ zeal of explorations short by suddenly ending the story before providing answers to the queries that the audience still has.
Likewise, Joss Whedon’s short six-word story arouses reader interest besides inviting audiences to speculate owing to its economy of details.
The author starts the story by informing readers of a situation whereby a gown has been haphazardly removed. This information calls to mind the image of a gown that has been hastily left after the wearer removed it. Readers are thus made to wonder about the reason as to why the wearer was in such a hurry. Different hypotheses thus crop up. Maybe the wearer was late for work? Maybe they hastily removed their gown as they hurriedly engaged in lovemaking with a partner? These hypotheses are however not refuted or affirmed as the author offers no further details.
Instead, Whedon introduces a twist to the story by observing that the ‘head’, has not been ‘carelessly removed’ as the gown. This is a rather eerie turn of events as readers are made to quickly get rid of any pleasant ideas behind the whole saga. It becomes apparent that someone has been killed by beheading. Their head has been neatly severed off their body. Readers from other hypotheses but are speedily halted when the story abruptly ends.
The three stories are similar in that they quickly arouse the reader’s attention and imagination. They also introduce a twist to the tale midway before abruptly ending the narrative.
The differences are that while Whedon’s and the story describes a fatal incident, the other 2 do not mention any fatality.
Works Cited
Hall, Homer L. Junior High Journalism. New York: Rosen Classroom, 2003.
Spierling, Ulrike and Szilas, Nicolas. Interactive Storytelling: First Joint International Conference on Interactive Digital Storytelling, ICIDS 2008, Erfurt, Germany: Proceedings. New York: Springer.
Wired 14: 11: Very Short Stories. Web.