A Companion to the American Short Story
Page 101
upon by the other Norwegians for “ turning his back on his own people and marrying
an American shop - girl ” (169), he becomes a success in his new country while those
“ of the old world, groveling and unaspiring ” are doomed to be left behind in the fast
paced “ new world ” (180).
Some collections from this era are more focused in terms of locale but more open
to the notion of diversity. For example, Alice Dunbar - Nelson ’ s The Goodness of St.
Roque and Other Short Stories (1899) moves beyond the black/white binary that clouded
perceptions of race to represent Creole and Cajun societies in New Orleans and its
vicinities. In Out of Mulberry Street: Stories of Tenement Life in New York (1897) by Jacob
Riis, tales about the white urban poor are interspersed with stories that focus on
Jewish immigrant, Native American, and African American characters. Many of the
stories are written with great delicacy and tenderness, surprising for this muckraking
journalist. The appearance of a Danish boy separated from his family, in “ Lost Chil-
dren, ” is refl ective of Riis ’ s own status when he came to America as a young man.
468
Molly Crumpton Winter
Often jobless, hungry, and homeless before he became a police reporter for the New
York Tribune , Riis identifi es with the loneliness and struggle of the immigrant. Myra
Kelly was another writer who depicted New York immigrant life empathetically in
her short stories. Kelly, who emigrated from Ireland, was an elementary school teacher
on the Lower East Side. Most of the stories in her three collections, Little Citizens
(1904) , Wards of Liberty (1907) , and Little Aliens (1910) , show immigrant and ghetto
experiences through the eyes of children, most of them Russian Jews. Miss Bailey,
their Irish American teacher, learns to understand the battles against poverty and
prejudice that these children and their families fi ght.
The most enduring collection of stories about Jewish immigrant life is The Imported
Bridegroom and Other Stories by Abraham Cahan, published in 1898 . Cahan, who immi-
grated to America from Lithuania with the tides of Jews fl eeing from Eastern Europe
at the end of the nineteenth century, was a Yiddish journalist and editor of the infl u-
ential Jewish Daily Forward . Though his main calling was to speak to and lead other
Jewish immigrants, he used his talents as a fi ction writer to communicate with main-
stream America. The stories in Imported Bridegroom involve the popular themes of
betrothal and marriage, yet, paradoxically, most of the stories result in a sense of
detachment and isolation. The disintegration of bonds of love and family are the
results of the move away from the insular culture of the homeland to the chaotic
infl uences of America and to the economic realities – work shortages and poverty –
found in the new land. One of the most pernicious infl uences depicted through the
stories is American materialism, which triggers in many characters the longing to
fulfi ll selfi sh, and mostly shallow, desires. However, the characters in the fi nal story,
“ A Ghetto Wedding, ” overcome this materialism, resist the forces that lead to isola-
tion, and fi nd a path to a meaningful life even while in the grips of poverty. Nathan
and Goldy spend beyond their means to throw themselves a wedding in hopes of
getting expensive gifts in return. Their friends, too poor to accommodate them, are
able to offer nothing of value. Walking home from the party “ they were so overcome
by a sense of loneliness, of a kind of portentous, haunting emptiness, that they could
not speak ” (239). However, as they move through the slums, mocked by troublemak-
ers on the street, they fi nd a way to turn toward each other instead of away.
Another collection that chronicles immigrant life is Mrs. Spring Fragrance (1912)
by Sui Sin Far (Edith Maude Eaton). Like Myra Kelly, Sui Sin Far had a close relation-
ship with her subjects but her own history and immigration experience did not mirror
that of most of her characters. Sui Sin Far was born to a British father and Chinese
mother and was raised in Canada, where the family moved when she was a child. As
an adult, she came to America, and her stories most often depict the lives of merchant
families on the West Coast and are the fi rst known examples of Asian American
fi ction. Most of these tales refl ect the concerns of other ethnic American texts of the
era as the Chinese American characters defi ne a place for themselves in a nation that
has legislated that they have no rights to citizenship. Perhaps her most provocative
stories are those, such as “ Her Chinese Husband ” and “ ‘ Its Wavering Image, ’ ” that
depict interracial relationships and biracial individuals.
The Multiethnic Story
469
The most productive writer of short stories dealing with issues of race and ethnicity
during this era was Charles W. Chesnutt. In 1885 Chesnutt ’ s work began to appear
in newspapers and magazines, and throughout his career he had dozens of short stories
published in periodicals, including some of the most prestigious of his time, such as
Century and the Atlantic Monthly . In 1899 Houghton Miffl in published his two col-
lections of short stories that, when viewed together, can be seen as a kind of template
for the range of themes and materials that would constitute the body of multiethnic
short story writing for the century to come. Of particular importance are his treat-
ments of history and its relation to contemporary social realities and the struggles
within an ethnic community as it responds to the infl uences and prejudices of the
greater society. The Conjure Woman addresses the atrocities and complexities of the
slaveholding South in the nation ’ s recent past. The Wife of His Youth consists mainly
of stories that portray contemporary African American life, in the North and the
South, with characters confronting issues such as miscegenation, class, and, intraracial
colorism. While the Conjure Woman stories depict a unifi ed community as the slaves
on the plantation are connected by friendship, sympathy, and shared condition, the
stories in Wife of His Youth trace divisions within African American life. However,
the overarching message of both texts has to do with personal and communal survival,
and Chesnutt suggests that unity is just as crucial to survival for African Americans
in the post – Civil War era is it was during slavery.
The communal spirit is evident in Conjure Woman in the story “ Sis ’ Becky ’ s Picka-
ninny. ” In this story Becky ’ s master trades her for a horse to another plantation owner.
Aunt Nancy, the slave left to take care of Becky ’ s infant son, becomes concerned about
the health of the child. She conspires with Aunt Peggy, the conjure woman, to heal
the child and eventually to trick both masters into reversing the trade so that mother
and child are reunited. Thanks to the work of the older women, the son grows to be
a healthy and resourceful man and eventually buys himself and then his mother out
of slavery. In many of the post - Reconstruction tales in Wife of His Youth , on the other
hand, the empty promise of assimilation lures characters to betray or repress racial
&nbs
p; ties in their desire to achieve some level of social equality. The title story sets up the
dilemma between the desire for advancement to national acceptance and the rifts
within black America due to region, class, color, and generation. Mr. Ryder, a leader
in the “ Blue Vein ” society, proclaims: “ I have no race prejudice, … but we people of
mixed blood are ground between the upper and nether millstone. Our fate lies
between absorption by the white race and extinction in the black. The one doesn ’ t
want us yet, but may take us in time. The other would welcome us, but it would be
for us a backward step. … Self - preservation is the fi rst law of nature ” ( Wife 7). Though
this is Mr. Ryder ’ s philosophy, by acknowledging his wife in the end he accepts all
that the Blue Veins would deny – the Southern, the folk, the heritage of slavery, and
their African roots. Chesnutt ’ s stories reveal that self - preservation is at the very least
empty and at worst impossible without communal connection, especially in a nation
that would not accept African Americans, regardless of intellectual or economic
achievement.
470
Molly Crumpton Winter
Though no major collections of short stories by American Indian or Latino/a writers
were published in this era, both traditions had their start during this time in main-
stream periodicals. Mar í a Cristina Mena, the fi rst Mexican American to publish short
fi ction in English, wrote a series of stories on Mexican life for
Century Magazine
between 1913 and 1916. Cherokee writer John M. Oskison published several stories
at this time, but his perspective is more distinctly regional than exclusively American
Indian. The characters in his early works are cowboys, townspeople, whites, mixed -
race and full Cherokee and Creek. What most of his stories have in common is the
physical space, Indian Territory, and the central theme that there is room for a diver-
sity of peoples and value systems. The implication is usually that compassion and
coexistence involve not imposing one ’ s will upon others. In his most anthologized
story, “ The Problem of Old Harjo, ” Oskison deals directly with the problems that
arise when divergent ethics intersect. In this tale, a young white missionary has suc-
ceeded in converting an old Creek, Harjo, who has two wives. The irony is that Harjo ’ s
life, even the decision to take two wives, has been guided by honor and charity, two
values central in the doctrines of Christianity, but, although he has made room in his
belief system to incorporate Christianity, western organized religion is unwilling to
incorporate the material facts of Harjo ’ s existence.
Another writer who dealt with the complexities of Native American life at the
turn into the twentieth century was Zitkala - Sa. The story “ Soft - Hearted Sioux, ” fi rst
published in Harper ’ s in 1901, calls into question the value of entering into American
society at all. The narrator, in the moments before his execution, tells of his conver-
sion to Christianity and acceptance of white America at boarding school and his
subsequent alienation from his tribe and family. In order to save his family, he kills
a white man, and the act serves to break the hold that white America has on his mind.
However, he feels distanced from his traditional culture, and he goes to his death free
in one way but isolated in another. In much of Zitkala - Sa ’ s writings, a rejection of
American identity coexists with a sense that a traditional tribal identity is no longer
viable once the process of assimilation begins. Though most writers between 1890
and 1915 expressed a desire for assimilation that is thwarted by a racist nation, some,
like Zitkala - Sa and Abraham Cahan, express ambivalence toward the Americanizing
process and question the culture and values of the nation itself. This questioning
would become the heart of many of the short stories that were to follow in the period
between World Wars I and II.
There is a subtle shift in representation in stories by ethnic American writers
between 1915 and 1945. The events of World War I seemed to revitalize ideas of
unifi ed action, and during the Depression writers were inspired by the possibilities
of unity and the promise of equality inherent in socialist movements. This period also
saw the establishment of two entities that would have great infl uence on the dissemi-
nation of short stories and the incorporation of their authors into the canon. From
their inception, the Best American Short Story series, which began in 1915, and the
O. Henry Prize, which was founded in 1919, both recognized the contributions of
ethnic American writers to be among the best the nation had to offer.
The Multiethnic Story
471
One of the fi rst stories of immigrant life to be selected for the Best American Short
Story series was “ The Fat of the Land ” (1919) by Anzia Yezierska. This story, which
would be included in her collection Hungry Hearts (1920) , contains themes, such as
the poverty of the ghettos and the pull of assimilation, found in short fi ction by earlier
Jewish American writers. However, the psychological complexity of the main char-
acter Hanneh Breineh signals a signifi cant change in ethnic American characteriza-
tion. Whereas before the modern era writers often found it necessary to portray
immigrants and people of color as exemplary citizens in order to convey to readers
that their subjects were of the same worth and value as themselves or to depict their
characters as innocent victims of racism in an unjust society, Hannah Breineh is not
as easy to identify with and is not an entirely sympathetic character. The roots of her
rage and despair – persecution in Russia, poverty in America – are embedded in the
story, yet the audience (like the neighbors in the story) cannot excuse the abuse of
her children. The ambiguity of the character requires consideration of the cross - sec-
tions of history, society, family, and personality that affect the lives of those considered
to be outside the American mainstream.
Several years later, in 1923 , “ Blood - Burning Moon ” by Jean Toomer was selected
as a Best American Short Story. Though not a prolifi c writer, the innovative nature
of Toomer ’ s multi - genre text Cane and its publication at the beginning of the Harlem
Renaissance make him an important point in the matrix of African American litera-
ture. Toomer ’ s break with traditional narrative, his unconventional use of language,
and the eerie sense of alienation or indifference that permeates his stories mark them
as modern texts in style and feel. Two stories from Cane were included in the ground-
breaking anthology The New Negro (1925) , edited by Alain Locke, which introduced
the amazing wealth of African American creativity and thought of the era.
Another writer included in the anthology was Zora Neale Hurston. Like Toomer,
Hurston published very few short stories, but her unique style and perspective have
made her also a central fi gure in African American literature. Several of her stories
appeared in Opportunity in the 1920s, and one of her fi rst, “ Spunk, ” won a prize from
Opportunity
in 1925. In 1933,
Story Magazine
printed
“
The Gilded Six Bits,
”
an
example of her best writing that incorporates Hurston ’ s most recognizable themes,
such as respect for the folk (the African American working poor of the South), the
depth and diversity of black culture, the pull of the material, the frailty of human
nature, and the possibility of redemption.
Two periodicals – the aptly titled Opportunity and The Crisis – were instrumental
in bringing together the African American talent that constituted the Harlem Renais-
sance. Marita Bonner, for example, published over a dozen stories in these periodicals
between 1925 and 1941. Jessie Fauset, best known as a novelist and the literary editor
of The Crisis from 1919 to 1926, had several stories appear in this forum. Between
1923 and 1925, six stories by Eric Walrond appeared in Opportunity , and in the late
1920s and early 1930s Rudolph Fisher published many stories in these periodicals as
well as in several mainstream standards, such as Atlantic Monthly and McClure ’ s Maga-
zine . The most prolifi c African American short story writer of the period was Chester
472
Molly Crumpton Winter
Himes, who, according to Bill Mullen, “ between 1933 and 1940 … published 17
stories in mainstream black and white commercial magazines – far more than any
black writer ” (33). By the late 1970s, when his last short story appeared in print,
Himes had written and published at least 60 stories, which were fi nally gathered into
a collection in 1991.
The most celebrated African American author to publish short stories during this
era was Richard Wright. In 1938 his story “ Fire and Cloud ” appeared in Story and
received an O. Henry Prize. That year his narrative of social and racial injustice,
“ Bright and Morning Star, ” was published in New Masses and was chosen the follow-
ing year as a Best American Short Story. In 1940 Harper ’ s Bazaar published “ Almo ’ s
a Man, ” which was selected as an O. Henry Prize story for that year. In 1938 “ Fire
and Cloud ” was collected with three other short stories in Uncle Tom ’ s Children : Four
Novellas . Two years later the volume, now titled Uncle Tom ’ s Children: Five Long Stories ,