Fiction Writers of the New Millennium - Term Paper Example

Major Fiction of the Modern Age In crafting a story of any kind, most are familiar withthe simple semi-pyramidal construct of beginning, conflict, climax and resolution. In this construct, stories are expected to have a beginning that introduces the characters, an introduction of conflict that leads to rising action, slowly building the tension until a climax moment is reached. Everything comes together at this point and the problem is generally solved so that the resolution of the story demonstrates how everything worked out or didn’t work out and what the characters learned from the experience. Modern fiction writers, however, have turned away from this simple construct to experiment with variations that often don’t resolve into anything for the characters. If they resolve into anything for the reader, it is up to the reader to find this meaning for themselves. Perhaps in keeping with the breakdowns in society that the authors were seeing at the time they wrote their stories, some of the major fiction writers of the past 50 years have presented stories that lack clear direction, climax or resolution. This structural approach can be found in short stories such as “Entropy” (1960) by Thomas Pynchon, “Lost in the Funhouse” (1969) by John Barth and DeLillo’s “The Angel Esmeralda” (1994). In “Entropy”, the author focuses on a scientific principle that suggests nature moves from a point of order to one of disorder (Random House, 2010). The story introduces a great number of characters with new characters arriving all the time and two characters completely separated within an isolated system. The breakdown referred to in the title is seen in every aspect of the story and stated explicitly by Callisto when dictating to Aubade that he “envisioned a heat-death for his culture in which ideas, like heat-energy, would no longer be transferred, since each point in it would ultimately have the same quantity of energy; and intellectual motion would, accordingly, cease” (Pynchon 306). This concept is acted out downstairs as communication and sharing breaks down among the party guests and the band begins rehearsing air music. Duke explains to Meatball, “if that first quartet of Mulligan’s had no piano, it could only mean one thing … no root chords. Nothing to listen to while you blow a horizontal line. What one does is such a case is, one thinks the roots” (Pynchon 311). Taking this thought a step further, the band was rehearsing what it would be like if no sound was released, the audience just had to think the sound coming out. The failure of this system is immediately demonstrated, though, when Krinkles, a member of the band, turns out to have been playing the wrong song in his head. In the end, nothing is fully resolved and no real climax point can be identified as the characters just sit back and wait for the final dissolution. Barth approaches the modern story a little differently, but also avoids the traditional structure throughout as he carefully points out to his reader those areas where he’s breaking the rules. “The function of the beginning of a story is to introduce the principal characters, establish their initial relationships, set the scene for the main action … a long time has gone by already without anything happening … we will never get out of the funhouse” (Barth 38). He has introduced a limited number of characters and he has established a relationship between them, he has even introduced a form of conflict in Ambrose’s awakening sexuality and competition with his brother for the girl, but the way in which he goes about doing this is very rambling, hazy and interspersed with odd commentary from the author as if giving a class on how to write a classic short story while breaking all the rules given. While he eventually gets around to how Ambrose ended up in the funhouse, Barth never truly brings his reader out of the funhouse. He does this by never providing a climax of any kind and through the ambiguous resolution within his main character: “at the Boy Scout initiation campfire he only pretended to be deeply moved, as he pretends to this hour that it is not so bad after all in the funhouse, and that he has a little limp” (Barth 54). The sense of apathy is almost overpowering while the questions the story has prompted remain unanswered. DeLillo comes the closest to the traditional story structure in his story “The Angel Esmeralda,” but still manages to reflect a sense of the doubt and uncertainty into his resolution that was expressed by the earlier writers. He introduces the penitent old nun, Sister Edgar, and her obsession with the infection of the outside world. He sets the scene with images of the South Side Bronx. He even introduces some rising action with the search for Esmeralda and a form of climax with Esmeralda’s image on the billboard. But Esmeralda is only allowed a few brief appearances and most of the action occurs in the head of the old nun. “Edgar laughed inside her skull. It was the drama of the angels that made her feel she belonged here. It was the terrible death these angels represented” (DeLillo 265). The climax of the miracle scene when everyone seems to meld together into one living organism is deadened already by the shock of Esmeralda’s death and the dark elements of the nuns’ daily life on the streets. Like the earlier writers, DeLillo allows the story to trail off without much resolution for the masses. “What do you remember, finally, when everyone has gone home and the streets are empty of devotion and hope, swept by river wind? Is the memory thin and bitter and does it shame you with its fundamental untruth – all nuance and wishful silhouette? Or does the power of transcendence linger, the sense of an event that violates natural forces, something holy that throbs on the hot horizon, the vision you crave because you need a sign to stand against your doubt?” (DeLillo 283). The final meaning is left up to the reader. Major writers of the modern age are major because of this demonstrated ability to both adhere to and break the rules of fiction in order to present thought-provoking stories that reflect the disruptions of society experienced in their time. For the earlier writers, the 1960s were times of tremendous social upheavals as African Americans were fighting for equal rights, women were fighting for recognition and the political world was being turned on its ear as protestors of war took to the streets. Things had settled down by the early 90’s, as is reflected in the more orderly approach of DeLillo, but that doesn’t mean that there weren’t still disruptions in society as the inner cities broke down, social services failed, drug culture took over and morals have been reduced to a highly subjective equation of the best available option among wrongs. Works Cited Barth, John. “Lost in the Funhouse.” Fifty Years of the American Short Story. (Vol. 1). William Abrahams (Ed.). New York: Doubleday & Company, 1970: 34-54. DeLillo, Don. “The Angel Esmeralda.” The Best American Short Stories 1995. Jane Smiley (Ed.). New York: Houghton Mifflin Company, 1995: 263-283. Pychon, Thomas. “Entropy.” The Best American Short Stories: 1961. Martha Foley & David Burnett (Eds.). Boston: Houghton Mifflin Company, 1961: 300-313. Read More