Short stories bear many similarities to memoirs, especially in terms of theme. Yet they also differ in numerous ways because of their fictional nature. The four short stories that we read in the last week all had very intimate themes, such the family relationships in Great Rock and Roll Pauses, or the ideas about death, family, and presence communicated in Interesting Facts. Yet at the same time, they are different from memoirs in the way they carry narratives, and help to illustrate the stylistic and structural conventions of short story writing.
As I mentioned before, I’ve found that memoirs and short stories are very similar in terms of theme development. Like memoirs, short stories generally tell narratives which feature recurring ideas, expressed implicitly. One way in which both formats explore theme is symbolism. Symbolism is present in each short story and memoir that we read. In Dizzy When You Look Down In, the most obvious symbol is Dizzy’s postcard, which starts off stiff and intact but ends up crumpled and ruined. War uses the symbol of
…show more content…
Memoirs, for example, must be written in first person, and must be based around the events that the author and narrator has experienced. In short stories, writers have the option to separate the narrator from the main character, and to step into more than one character’s experiences. Although it is not in the third person, Interesting Facts does this quite a bit. It steps in and out of lives of different characters even after the main character’s death. Dizzy When You Look Down In can also serve as an example of this, since it spends so much time talking about Dizzy and practically makes him the protagonist despite the fact that his brother is the narrator. Another difference is the fictional nature of short stories as compared to the non fictional nature of memoirs. While memoirs are retellings of reality, short stories are, at most, inspired by