The aesthetics of contemporary short fiction have been shaped by its ability to engage with time as a boundless process of becoming. Historically and philosophically,
the emergence of the short story as a specific genre
may be related to modernist concepts of time and
subjectivity. 'Real' time, as it is experienced by
the subject, is a flux, in which past and present
co-mingle. In Bergsonian terms, an unquantifiable
'duration' 1S contrasted with Newtonian concepts of
absolute time as a succession of discrete units. As
Hanson has argued, narrative in the short story 1S
structured by a seemingly random association of 1mages
rather than linear causality.
I contextualize the short story genre, historically
and culturally, examining texts by George Egerton and
Katherine Mansfield before moving on to the main focus
of my thesis, which is texts by Alice Munro and Grace
Paley. These also present a dynamic reality, within
time as a continuum. However, while utilizing modernist
techniques, they also subvert them, problematizing concepts
of transcendence. The blurring of the boundaries between
autobiographical discourse, orality and fiction is used
to destabilize notions of a unified subjectivity and
of fixed truth.
My analysis applies Bakhtinian theories on language
and subject formation to investigate this presentation
of time as endless self-renewal. I also draw on Genette's
narrative theory and introduce Kristevan theory to
investigate the speaking subject from a psychoanalytical
viewpoint, with particular reference to the gendered
subject. The Bakhtinian concept of the chronotope enables
the theorization of the space-time nexus as the foundation
of generic specificity; I offer a generic chronotope
for the short story, which is grounded in the present
moment. An examination of the fiction-making process,
through a discussion of my own short stories, concludes
this discussion of the short story as a form of contact
with undefinable reality
