Download Title: Modern Short Fiction and Novellas Aim: This course looks at

School of Undergraduate Studies
Ambedkar University Delhi
Course Outline
Course Code: EN13
Title: Modern Short Fiction and Novellas
Type of Course: ( Discipline)
Cohort for which it compulsory: NA
Cohort for which it is elective: Elective for English Major and for all other Programmes
No of Credits: 4
Semester and Year Offered: 5th semester
Course Coordinator and Team: Diamond Oberoi Vahali
Email of course coordinator: [email protected]
Pre-requisites: Interest in fiction and the ability to analyze it
Aim: This course looks at Fiction as a specific category in literature with its own peculiar
characteristics. While the course will delve into the various themes of the stories and novellas
listed below, it will also closely study the form as well as the various literary devices and styles
employed by the writers. While analyzing the stories, each story will be contextualized in the
time, history and locale in which it is written as well as in the biographical and psychic trajectory
of the author. The course proposes to undertake an in depth analysis of the stories. The purpose
of the course is also to help the students develop a comprehensive understanding of fiction as a
distinct genre in literature with its own specific forms of perceiving and registering reality in all
its varied manifestations. The selection of stories is especially designed to offer a wide range of
themes as well as forms. The themes of the course will range from themes related to Love,
passion, desire, struggle, resilience, poverty, marginalization, grief, patriarchy and the struggle of
women against it, to themes related to capitalism, consumerism and its impact on the psyche of
little children. Some of the stories also include themes related to the partition of the Indian subcontinent and the psychic devastation that it caused, racism, apartheid, hatred, inhumanity and
callousness as well as themes related to alienation, nostalgia and the longing for one’s homeland.
The stories are selected keeping in mind the need to broaden the perspective of the readers. For
this purpose, each story belongs to a different sub-genre and represents different modes of
writing. As the writers belong to different countries, hence the present selection almost serves as
a window to the literature of various countries. The stories represent Indian Regional literature;
Urdu literature, Bangla literature and Hindi literature, European literature: Russian literature,
British literature, American literature, Latin American literature, African literature, and writings
from the Indian Diaspora. Similarly, the selected stories represent a few specific sub-genres;
such as suspense narratives, allegory, satire, epistolary writing, partition narratives, political
allegories, autobiographical writings, protest narratives, subaltern literature, among several other
forms of writings.
Brief description of modules/ Main modules:
Module 1: Novellas
The first module will deal with two significant novellas. The module will undertake an in
depth analysis of the two novellas listed below:
Marquez, No one Writes to the Colonel
Hemmingway, The Old Man and the Sea
Module 11: Short Fiction
The second module will undertake an indepth analysis of the nine short stories listed below
Dostovesky, “ White Nights”
Kafka, “In the Penal Colony”
D. H. Lawrence, “The Rocking Horse Winner”
Rabindranath Tagore, “A Wife’s Letter”
Rasheed Jahan, “A Trip to Delhi”
Chekhov, “Grief”
Roger Mais, “Blackout”
Rassundari Devi, Selection from “Amar Jiban”
Maupassant “Forgiveness”
Indicative Reading list (Students are expected to select stories from the following list for
presentations):
Marquez, “The Incredible Tale of Innocent Eriendera and her Wicked Grandmother”
Mahasweta Devi, “The Breast Giver”
Nikolai Gogol, “The Overcoat”
Kamleshwar, “How Many Pakistans”
Alice Walker, “The Abortion”
Alex La Guma, “The Blanket”
Edgar Allan Poe, “The Purloined Letter”
Charalotte Perkins Gilman, “The Yellow Wall Paper”
Jhumpa Lahri, “When Mr. Pirzada came to Dine”
Premchand, “Kafan”
Gorki, “One Autumn”
Ray Bradbury, “The Fog Horn”
Bessie Head, “Heaven is not Closed”
M.G. Vassanji, “Leaving”
Assessment Details with weights:
Term Paper and presentation 30%, Class Participation 10%, writing a Journal 30%, analyzing a critical
essay related to the art of fiction /Short story 30%