What is Contemporary
Literature?
Most concur that the period of contemporary composing started during the 1940s. A couple of
researchers guarantee this period began toward the end of World War II, and this is the place where the
time's blending with postmodern writing comes in. The postmodern time started after WWII, during
the 1940s, and endured through the 1960s. The contemporary period reaches out to the current day.
Contemporary composed works will, in general, be affected by the prosperous way of life that
followed WWII, yet this literary class is established in the devastation that war brought to the world.
Another reality bloomed in the post-war mind, and it incorporated individual negativity, bafflement,
and dissatisfaction that is basic to this literary period. The horrors of the war, including bombs, ground
wars, genocide, and corruption, are the pathways to this type of literature. It is from these real-life
themes that they find the beginning of a new period of writing. Literature is indeed one of the
approaches to comprehend and battle the troublesome social issues that shape our reality. A portion of
the social issues that writing fundamentally wrestles is bias or prejudice, particularly in women,
ethnicity, and race.
Social issues in contemporary literature
1. Women in Literature
2. Ethnic in Literature
3. Racism in Literature
Women in Literature
Female writers have come to
the forefront and provided today's
readers with a vast array of ethnic
and cultural perspectives. The unique
voice of female minorities is a
common theme in many coming of
age novels that allows each writer to
establish a separate identity for their
characters and themselves. Women
in modern literature often include
strong independent females
juxtaposed by oppressed women to
provide examples for young female
readers and to critique the shortcomings of our society. Later, authors such as Virginia Woolf and
Simone de Beauvoir wrote about women's inability to assert their personal power in their essays. Other
female writers wrote stories of women who have suffered oppression in a racist and sexist society.
Ethnic in Literature
Numerous contemporary creators, like
Alice Walker and Toni Morrison, have
investigated the double persecution by identity
and sex of Black ladies in the United States. The
improvement of these subjects returns to
Sojourner Truth's 1851 discourse, "Ai not I a
Woman," and furthermore Zora Neale Hurston's
epic, Their Eyes Were Watching God, which showed up in 1937. Hurston's novel, with its solid female
hero, is an immediate antecedent to Walker and Morrison's books for example, separately, The Color
Purple and Beloved Ethnic literature, the definition says, is literature like any other, except that it
contains ethnic references. When readers who are designated "na ve" since they are relatively less
conscious of the functions of literary forms, encounter
ethnic literature, they respond to the verisimilitude of
the narration so completely they take the literature as an
equivalence for life. Plot and devices of narration
evaporate from the na ve readers' awareness and Native
Son or Black Boy become histories of Black life similar to
From Slavery to Freedom in their presumed references
to objective reality.
Racism in Literature
Racism, a disease of the ignorant, is a horrific
part of society, and has reared its ugly head
throughout history, and is continuing to do the same
today. Racism comes in many shapes and forms,
directed towards a variety of cultures. Oftentimes,
there are people who see racism and are inspired to
write about it, with the goal in mind to make a difference and change society's belief.
Challenges to Contemporary Literature
o Literature is language-based and national; contemporary society is globalizing and polyglot.
o Vernacular means of everyday communication "” cellphones, social networks, streaming video "”
are moving into areas where printed text cannot follow.
o Intellectual property systems failing.
o Means of book promotion, distribution and retail destabilized.
o Ink-on-paper manufacturing is an outmoded, toxic industry with steeply rising costs.
o Core demographic for printed media is aging faster than the general population. Failure of print
and newspapers is disenfranching young apprentice writers.
o Media conglomerates have poor business model; economically rationalized "culture industry" is
actively hostile to vital aspects of humane culture.
o Digital public-domain transforms traditional literary heritage into a huge, cost-free, portable,
searchable database, radically transforming the reader's relationship to belle-lettres.
o Barriers to publication entry have crashed, enabling huge torrent of sub-literary and/or non-literary
textual expression.
o Algorithms and social media replacing work of editors and publishing houses; network socially-
generated texts replacing individually-authored texts.
o "Convergence culture" obliterating former distinctions between media; books becoming one minor
aspect of huge tweet/ blog/ comics/ games / soundtrack/ television / cinema / ancillary-
merchandise pro-fan franchises.
o Academic education system suffering severe bubble-inflation.
o Polarizing civil cold war is harmful to intellectual honesty.
What is a Short Story?
A short story is a work of short, narrative prose that is usually centered around one single
event. It is limited in scope and has an introduction, body and conclusion. Although a short story has
much in common with a novel, it is written with much greater precision. You will often be asked to
write a literary analysis. An analysis of a short story requires basic knowledge of literary elements.
Strategies and Methods in Analyzing a Short Story
1. Using the SIFT Method of Literary Analysis
When exploring how a writer uses literary elements and stylistic techniques to convey meaning
or theme, you may want to consider the SIFT method to practice literary analysis. This method allows
you to “ sift” through the parts in order to comprehend the whole.
SIFT Method
Symbol: examine the title and the text for symbolism
Images: identify images and sensory details
Figures of speech: analyze figurative language and other devices
Tone and Theme: discuss how all devices reveal tone and theme
SYMBOL
Since the title of a story or novel often contains symbols that hint at theme, you should first be
encouraged to reexamine the title. Is part of the title a central symbol in the story? Are there other
significant symbols in the story? What are the characteristics of the symbol(s)? Speculate about its
significance. Has the symbol been used in literature before to represent the same themes in this story?
Does the meaning of the symbol change throughout the story, and does the change reveal insights
about the author’s use of symbolism and its contribution to theme?
IMAGERY
Writers use language to create sensory impressions and to evoke specific responses to
characters, objects, events, or situations in their works. The writer “ shows” rather than “ tells,” thus
allowing the reader to participate in the experience more fully.
Therefore, imagery helps to produce mood and tone. When reading a piece of literature
containing imagery, consider two questions:
1. What do I see, hear, taste, smell, or feel?
2. What EFFECT is the author trying to convey with these images?
Does the story open or close with significant or intense images? Why might the author begin or
end with those images? What kind of information or message do they provide?
FIGURES OF SPEECH (aka FIGURATIVE LANGUAGE)
Writers form images by using figures of speech such as similes, metaphors, and
personification. Find examples in the story and discuss how these figures of speech help to convey
effect and meaning. Consider the following questions:
1. What is the significance of comparisons in the story? (metaphors, similes, etc.)
2. How do figures of speech enhance meaning?
Consider other devices used in the story such as irony and allusion. Irony is often found in the
contradictions of expectations and reality, or appearance and reality. How do allusions enhance the
meaning or effect of the novel? Does the author retain the original symbolic meaning of an allusion, or
does he/ she alter it?
TONE
A close examination of word choice, imagery, and detail reveals a narrator’s attitude or tone
and contributes to the reader’s understanding. Find details that reveal the author’s tone toward the
subjects of the story.
THEME
To determine the theme, you might:
1. Summarize the story.
2. List the subject s or motifs that emerge from the summary, such as evil, injustice, inhumanity,
social protest, corruption, poverty, tradition, individuality, survival, etc.
3. Write a sentence about each subject or motif based on insights gained from analyzing
symbolism, imagery, figurative language, and other devices. Because all literary devices lead to
tone and theme, this process will help you to perceive what insights about life the author is
revealing about each subject and to refine the process of determining meaning in a text.
Ask yourself what life-lessons the main characters have learned or what lessons they
themselves have learned as a result of reading. Look for statements in the story by the characters or
the narrator that comment on life, the world, or human nature, thereby implying theme. Discuss each
thematic possibility and decide which to be the most probable based upon the evidence from the text
and from this “ SIFTing” process, keeping in mind the fact that many stories have more than one theme
and there is seldom just one “ right” answer.
Example themes:
• Based on the motif of social protest: “ When a man becomes a threat to society , that society
sets out to destroy him.”
• Based on the motif of individual and society: “ Man has no individual identity and cannot exist
as a single human person apart from society.”
2. Using Freytag’s Pyramid
What is Freytag’s Pyramid? Novelist Gustav Freytag developed this narrative pyramid in the
19th century, as a description of a structure fiction writers had used for millennia. It’s quite famous, so
you may have heard it mentioned in an old English class, or maybe more recently in one of our online
fiction writing courses.
Freytag’s Pyramid describes the five key stages of a story, offering a conceptual framework for
writing a story from start to finish. These stages are:
o Exposition
o Rising Action
o Climax
o Falling Action
o Resolution
Introduction to Freytag’s pyramid
Storytelling is one of the oldest human traditions, and although the art of creative writing
traverses dozens of genres and thousands of languages, the actual storytelling formula hasn’t changed
all that much. Whether you’re writing short stories, screenplays, nonfiction, or even some narrative
poetry, the majority of stories follow a fairly simple pattern called Freytag’s Pyramid.
If you’re looking to write your next story or polish one you just wrote, read more on Freytag’s
Pyramid and what each element can do for your writing.
1. Freytag’s Pyramid: Exposition
Your story has to start somewhere, and in Freytag’s Pyramid, it starts with the exposition. This
part of the story primarily introduces the major fictional elements – the setting, characters, style, etc.
In the exposition, the writer’s sole focus is on building the world in which the story’s conflict happens.
The length of your exposition depends on the complexity of the story’s conflict, the extent of
the world being written, and the writer’s own personal preference. Tolkien’s Lord of the Rings is
wrought with backstory and exposition, often spanning chapters of pure worldbuilding. By contrast, C.
S. Lewis offers very little exposition in the Chronicles of Narnia series, choosing instead to entangle
conflict with worldbuilding. Still, whether your exposition is fifty pages or a sentence, use this part of
the story to draw readers in. Make your fictional world as real as this one.
Your exposition should end with the “inciting incident” – the event that starts the main conflict
of the story.
2. Freytag’s Pyramid: Rising Action
The rising action explores the story’s conflict up until its climax. Often, things “get worse” in
this part of the story: someone makes a wrong decision, the antagonist hurts the protagonist, new
characters further complicate the plot, etc.
For many stories, rising action takes up the most amount of pages. However, while this part of
the book explores the story’s conflict and complications, the rising action should investigate much
more than just the story’s plot. In rising action, the reader often gains access to key pieces of backstory.
As the conflict unfolds, the reader should learn more about the characters’ motives, the world of the
story, the themes being explored, and you may want to foreshadow the climax as well.
Finally, when you look back at the story’s rising action, it should be clear how each plot point
connects to the story’s climax and aftermath. But first, let’s write the climax.
3. Freytag’s Pyramid: Climax
Of course, every part of your story is important, but if there’s one part where you really want to
stick the landing, it’s the climax. Here, the story’s conflict peaks and we learn the fate of the main
characters. A lot of writers enter the climax of their story believing that it needs to be short, fast, and
action-packed. While some stories might require this style of climax, there’s no strict formula when it
comes to climax writing. Think of the climax as the “turning” point in the story – the central conflict is
addressed in a way that cannot be undone.
Whether the climax is only one scene or several chapters is up to you, but remember that your
climax isn’t just the turning point in the story’s plot structure, but also its themes and ideas. This is your
opportunity to comment on whatever concept is driving your story’s narrative, giving the reader an
emotional takeaway.
Note: for playwrights, the climax is usually the middle act, though of course not every
theatrical production follows the rules.
4. Freytag’s Pyramid: Falling Action
In falling action, the writer explores the aftermath of the climax. Do other conflicts arise as a
result? How does the climax comment on the story’s central themes? How do the characters react to
the irreversible changes made by the climax?
The story’s falling action is often the trickiest part to write. The writer must start to tie up loose
ends from the main conflict, explore broader concepts and themes, and push the story towards some
form of a resolution while still keeping the focus on the climax and its aftermath. If the rising action
pushes the story away from “normal,” the falling action is a return to a “new normal,” though rising and
falling action look dramatically different.
At the same time, the story must still engage the reader. When writing the story’s falling
action, be sure to expand on the world of the story, the mysteries that lie within that world, and
whatever else makes your story compelling.
5. Freytag’s Pyramid: Resolution/Denouement
How do you end a story? One of the most frustrating parts of writing is figuring out where the
narrative ends. Theoretically, the story can continue on forever, especially in the aftermath of a life-
altering climax, or even if the story is set in an alternate world.
The resolution of the story involves tying up the loose ends of the climax and falling action.
Sometimes, this means following the story’s aftermath to a chilling conclusion—the protagonist dies,
the antagonist escapes, a fatal mistake has fatal consequences, etc. Other times, the resolution ends
on a lighter note. Maybe the protagonist learns from their mistakes, starts a new life, or else forgives
and rectifies whatever incited the story’s conflict. Either way, use the resolution to continue your
thoughts on the story’s themes, and give the reader something to think about after the last word is
read.
Some writers also use the term “denouement” when discussing the resolution. A denouement
[day-new-mawn] refers to the last event that ties up the story’s loose ends, sometimes expressed in
the story’s epilogue or closing scene.
Read the story “The Fence” by Jose Garcia Villa and analyze using SIFT Method of
Freytag’s Pyramid. Use the following questions as your guide.
1. Who are the two adversaries in the story? Who is the childless widow? Who has a
philandering husband and a tubercular son?
2. Who built the fence? Why does she need it for?
3. Why did the other lady help build the fence?
4. Why did the husband leave the house?
5. Why did Aling Biang come to the succor of Sebia, her bitter enemy?
6. Why was Iking prohibited from playing outside the house? Did the fence between the two
houses prevent Iking’s intoxication with the girl in the other house beyond the fence
blossom into love?
7. What does the fence symbolize? What does the bamboo represent?
8. Tell the moral of the story
