Essay on Modernism and Post-Modernism in Selected Short Stories

This essay examines the influence of modernism and post-modernism on short stories, with a focus on the concept of chaos. The essay analyzes four short stories: “A Good Man is Hard to Find” by Flannery O'Connor, “The Man Who Knew Belle Starr” by Richard Bausch, “A Distant Episode” by Paul Bowles, and “Where Are You Going, Where Have You Been?” by Joyce Carol O'ates. The essay argues that all four stories reflect postmodern characteristics and the authors do not try to resolve the chaos within the stories. The stories are evaluated in terms of their abrupt endings, lack of information, and the common themes of death, violence, and fear. The essay concludes that these stories represent the changing landscape of short stories and the portrayal of modern anxieties and challenges.

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Modernism and Post-Modernism drastically modified the way the various authors as
well as the short story writers used to narrate the stories or the way they them to the readers.
One of the common features of all the modern as well as the post-modern literary texts is the
presence of a significant amount of chaos in the literary works. This essay will try to find the
literary relation between the short stories “A Good Man is Hard to Find” by Flannery
O'Connor, “The Man Who Knew Belle Starr” by Richard Bausch, “A Distant Episode” by
Paul Bowles and “Where Are You Going, Where Have You Been?” by Joyce Carol Oates.
In the opinion of many people the primary difference between the various modern
artists and the post-modern artists can be judged on the basis of the chaos theory. According
to the chaos theory, “a modern artist tries to come out of the chaos where a post-modern artist
celebrates the chaos”. It is significant to note that a closer analysis of the four literary texts
would reveal that all four of them belong to the genre of post-modernism and the writers of
these short stories do not try to resolve the chaos which forms the core of the story.
Therefore, for the story “The Man Who Knew Belle Starr” by Richard Bausch no
significant information about the girl is being provided and the story ends rather abruptly.
Similarly, the story “A Good Man is Hard to Find” by Flannery O'Connor also ends rather
abruptly without providing any significant information either about the Misfit or the reasons

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why he murdered the family which merely sought his help. The short-story “Where Are You
Going, Where Have You Been?” by Joyce Carol Oates is also a chaotic one and does nor
provides any significant information about the two men who arrive at the house of Connie
and like the above two stories it also ends rather abruptly. Furthermore, the short story “A
Distant Episode” by Paul Bowles is also similar in nature as it also ends very abruptly and
does not provide any information about the Professor or the reason why he is searching for
his friend (Bowles). In addition to these, the elements of death, violence, fear, road journey
and others are a part of almost all of these four short stories of the 20th century.
To conclude, the genre of Literature has undergone much transformation in the recent
times not only in terms of the style of writing but also in terms of the content as well. The
four stories discusses above are a typical expression of the recent changes in the style as well
as the content of the short stories. Furthermore, it is generally seen that most of the preset day
short stories try to portray the condition of the modern man in the society and also the fear,
isolation, anxiety, the constant threat from death and other issues faced by them. Therefore,
the above three short stories when viewed in this particular light become very important
examples of the literary style of modernism and postmodernism.