Guiding the early teens, and introducing them into reading habits is pretty difficult now because of the advent of the internet which has overtaken all reading habits, especially with the mushrooming of WhatsApp groups. Some people, including teens, have very many numbers of such groups, where reading the content itself takes a lot of time, let alone responding to them. Without any deliberate design of their own WhatsApp groups, which bring only information, lure these children away from reading original literature which would otherwise have greatly influenced their growth. The best strategy to be adopted for these children at this age is creating a habit of reading short stories.
Prose, poetry, drama, essays, fiction, one act plays and short stories are different genres, types, of literature, just as there are different ones in music, painting, sculpture or architecture. Reading short stories have the advantage of going through a plot, story, narratives, descriptions, including those of characters, incidents and other details available in a story in a short time unlike reading a novel or a play. Short stories deal with life and associated people, events, episodes, places and various aspects of nature and the humans in them. So, in a short time, young readers learn about the lives of people and the interactions, and the associated complexities of life connected with them.
Short stories are one of the oldest genres, types, of literature, though they are viewed as the most suitable type for the modern times as they came into existence in the present form just two centuries ago. The ancient storytelling traditions evolved into written verse in the epics. In the late middle ages, some of these stories like ‘The Canterbury Tales’ and the Egyptian ‘The Shipwrecked Sailor’ were in the short story form. The modern short story came into existence in the nineteenth century and initially they were mostly written by Nathaniel Hawthorne and Washington Irving. ‘Twice Told Tales’ was a short story collection published by the former in 1837. Edgar Allan Poe, another famous short story writer, wrote a review on the collection in 1842. The publication of journals and the magazine boom in the late nineteenth and the early twentieth centuries made short story writing and reading popular. The golden age of short stories is early to mid-twentieth century. These days, the internet based ‘Flash Fiction’ has replaced the position of short story reading considerably.
Though there are many well known short story writers, O. Henry is considered the most popular among them. No one can miss O. Henry’s ‘Gift of the Magi’ and its impact on any young reader, who will be influenced by the authentic love between Jim and Della, the two youthful but poor characters in the short story. As a part of the title, O. Henry takes the name of the Magi, the three kings who came to give gifts to Jesus Christ when he was born, because the narration is about giving gifts. Both Jim and Della could not have spent a Christmas without giving gifts to each other, a happy practice the Westerners follow as a symbol of togetherness. In the story, Jim sells his watch, the only precious thing that he possessed, to buy a set of combs for the beautiful hair of his wife as a Christmas gift for her. With a tremendous amount of sacrificial love, he sells his watch and buys a set of fancy combs for his wife. Della too goes to the market and sells her beautiful hair, the only thing that she possessed, which she could sell, to buy a platinum chain for Jim’s watch. When both reach home, they understand that their gifts would be of no use though they proclaimed their love for each other during Christmas. O. Henry could not have brought the idea of intense affection to children, even to anyone, in any way better than influencing them to think that love cannot be best expressed but through generosity and sacrifice.
I taught ‘The Gift of the Magi’ for three years continuously in pre-university classes. Once after teaching the story, after the bell rang to close the lecture, and as I was going out, one student stopped me to speak, a rare thing to happen indeed. I thought he wanted to clarify some doubts about the structure of sentence writing which I taught after teaching the story; otherwise, the storylines were very clear. The student’s request was to avoid teaching that story. I was surprised and asked the reason for the unusual request because he was an intelligent student and always a front bencher. He said that the story made him cry; his voice was actually faltering, and he did not follow the structure part that I taught at all. He said that he was still experiencing the sorrow of Della and Jim. Undoubtedly, the impact of the short story on a late teen could not be overlooked. No doubt, I continued to teach the same story next year too and I did remember the young boy. Well written and well narrated short stories can have an immediate impact on the reader.
Though Maupassant, the French short story writer, is considered the father of modern short stories, the most popular commemoration is reserved for O. Henry after an award was established in the United States in his name for very popular short stories and short story writers. Every year this award is given to more than one writer or one popular short story. Collections of short stories are popular all over the world because each one can be read while travelling or when one gets a little leisure. That is why the short story reading is also known as a ‘little break’ between schedules of work or short travels.
In an era of ‘WhatsApp boom’ where information is shared and may be discarded in an instant, promoting short story reading among the teens, especially the early ones, is a highly productive and mental developmental intervention that parents primarily and teachers additionally need to attend to.
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Prof. Sunney Tharappan, is Director of College for Leadership and HRD, Mangaluru. He trains and writes and lives in Mangaluru. Email: [email protected]