The Two Basic Forms of the Short Story Part 2

While Edger Allan Poe, among others, perfected the well-made short story, Anton Chekhov perfected the slice-of-life short story. As I pointed out before, the slice-of-life short story is simply what its name implies: a slice of life. It is a slice or piece of time, or more specifically, what occurs during a certain period of time. It doesn’t follow the typical story structure in the sense that it builds to a climax in the same way a well-made short story does.

Chekov’s idea of the short story differed from that of Poe and many of those who came before him. To him the short story was like a mosaic, little pieces put together to create a larger picture. Many of his stories lacked plot, a dominant characteristic of the well-made story.

One great illustration of this is Anton Chekhov’s short story “Misery.” This story depicts an evening in the life of a Russian sledge driver named Iona who has just lost his son. It begins like this:

        The twilight of evening. Big flakes of wet snow are whirling lazily about the
        street lamps, which have just been lighted, and lying in a thin soft layer
        on roofs, horses’backs, shoulders, caps. Iona Potapov, the sledge-driver,
        is all white like a ghost. He sits on the box without stirring, bent as double
        as the living body can be bent. If a regular snowdrift fell on him it seems
        as though even then he would not think it necessary to shake it off. . . .

  

We see from this introduction that our main character is a bit despondent. He sits hunched over, not seeming to care about the snow that is accumulating on his back.

His first customer of the evening is an impatient Russian officer. 

      “Sledge to Vyborgskaya!” Iona hears. “Sledge!”

       Iona starts, and through his snow-plastered eyelashes sees an officer
       in a military overcoat with a hood over his head.

     “To Vyborgskaya,” repeats the officer. “Are you asleep? To Vyborgskaya!”

The officer gets in and Iona drives on in a rather distracted manner almost running into others.

      “Where are you shoving, you devil?” Iona immediately hears shouts
       from the dark mass shifting to and fro before him. “Where the devil
       are you going? Keep to the right!”

     “You don’t know how to drive! Keep to the right,” says the officer angrily.

After getting the sledge back on course, Iona then tells the officer how he has lost his son.  However while telling the officer the details of the situation, Iona continues to drive off course, almost running into pedestrians. When Iona turns back around to the officer after once again getting back on course, he finds that the officer has closed his eyes and is no longer inclined to listen.

His next group of passengers consists of three rowdy young men. One of them he calls the hunchback because he is shorter than the other two and is hunchbacked. The hunchback is loud, obnoxious, and rude. Iona and the hunchback have this exchange:

     “Well drive on,” says the hunchback in his cracked voice, settling
       himself and breathing down Iona’s neck. “Cut along! What a cap
       you’ve got, my friend! You wouldn’t find a worse one in all Petersburg. . . .

  

     “He-he! . . .he-he! . . .” laughs Iona. “It’s nothing to boast of!”

     “Well, then, nothing to boast of, drive on! Are you going to drive like this

      all the way? Eh? Shall I give you one in the neck?”

After some small talk among his passengers, Iona tries to let them know that his son has died. The hunchback responds:

     “We shall all die, . . .” says the hunchback with a sigh, wiping
       his lips after coughing. “Come, drive on! Drive on! My friends,
       I simply cannot stand crawling like this! When will he get us
       there?”

He tries one more time to tell his passengers of his pain, but to no avail.  After a slap on the back of Iona’s neck and more small talk, their ride comes to an end and once again he is left alone. He decides to call it a day and goes back to the stables. There he tries once again to tell a fellow driver of the loss of his son, but the man does not listen. So he must turn his attention to the only one who will listen—his horse.

     "Are you munching?” Iona asks his mare, seeing her shining eyes.
     “There, munch away, munch away. . . .Since we have not earned
       enough for oats, we will eat hay. . . .Yes, . . . I have grown too old
       to drive. . . .My son ought to be driving, not I. . . . He was a real
       coachman. . . .He ought to have lived. . . .”

Iona goes on to lament that his son has died for no reason. Chekhov ends with this:

     The little mare munches, listens, and breathes on her master’s hands.
     Iona is carried away and tells her about it.

As you can see, the story has no plot but simply portrays a moment or an evening in the life of this man, Iona.  It is, in a sense, a slice of time taken from his life. You may be asking what it is that holds stories like these together since they have no plot. What is it that makes them worth reading?  According to professor Laurie Rozakis of Farmingdale State Universiy, it is the character’s moment of realization or epiphany. Or, you could call it an Ah-ha moment. Whatever you choose to call it, it is essential to the success of your slice of life short story.

Dana Gioia and R.S. Gwynn. The Art of the Short Story. New York, NY: Pearson Longman, 2006.

Laurie E. Rozakis, Ph.D. Creating Writing for Dummies. New York, NY: Alpha Books, 2004.