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To say that a story can have more than a single meaning doesn’t imply that it can mean anything at all. You have to be able to find sufficient important details that can support your interpretation. Often readers find it difficult to formulate a single sentence that captures their impression of what a story means. After many futile minutes of trying to “boil it down” to a one-sentence essence, they may find words coming irresistibly to mind from another con­ text, written by the American poet Archibald MacLeish: “A poem should not mean I But be. ”

The way the author creates the narrative by using all the elements of fic­ tion to embody the theme is, of course, the most important achievement of the story. To appreciate the fact that the story itself is always more complex than its bare-bones meaning, try this experiment: Write a sentence summarizing what

18 The Elements of Fiction: A Storyteller’s Means

you believe to be the theme of “Samuel” and then close your anthology and try to re-create Paley’s story.

Though the summary of a writer’s theme is no substitute for the story in its entirety, your attempt to state it can help you to understand the story better. Flannery O’Connor insisted that a story is not its abstract meaning but rather what she called its “experienced” meaning: “A story is a way to say something that can’t be said any other way, and it takes every word in the story to say what the meaning is . . . . When anybody asks what a story is about, the only proper thing is to tell him to read the story.”

COMMENTARIES Anton Chekhov, “Technique in Writing the Short Story,” page 594; William Faulkner, “The Meaning of� Rose for Emily, ‘” page 598; Flan­ nery O’Connor, “The Element of Suspense in � Good Man Is Hard to Find, ‘ ” page 672; David S. Reynolds, “Poe’s Art of Transformation in ‘The Cask of Amontillado, ‘” page 694.

WEI Learn more about the elements of fiction with VirtuaLit Fiction at bedfordstmartins. com/ charters/ litwriters.

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