The short fiction readings are grouped according to narrative style with ancillary poetry readings chosen for either their narrative style or thematic relation to the stories. For each story or poem you read, please consider the following broad questions as a framework for your close reading. The individual guide questions provided for each story or poem will direct you to examine its more specific aspects.

• Why has the author chosen a particular narrative point of view?
  
• Why does the point of view suit the subject of the work?
  
• How can the reader differentiate between the narrator’s purpose and the author’s purpose?
  
• What role does irony play in each work?
  
• What literary elements and devices does the author use and to what effect?

Unlike Subjective Narration , Detached Autobiography (also known as First Person Detached) presents readers with first person narrators who are as reliable and unbiased as they can be. In a sense, these narrators become guides for the readers, mediating between them and the characters.

Although these narrators are themeselves characters in the stories they tell, they are describing events and feelings thay had in the past. They are now in a frame of mind that has changed a great deal since the time they underwent the experience, a frame of mind that may even be the result of what they have learned as a result of that experience. By one means or another, but ultimately always by the passage of time, the narrators have arrived at the understanding of their experience they must have in order to discuss it with a neutral, watchful audience. These stories are effective not simply because the narrators frame events and help the readers interpret them, but also because they are so often about the process of growing up and maturing. Readers are thus more likely to simply accept the narrator's interpretation of what happened and perhaps then relate the story to their own experiences.

Frank O'Connor's short story, "First Confession" is included as a classic example of Deatched Autobiography. "Krapp's Last Tape," a one-act play by Samuel Beckett is included because it seems to employ several kinds of first person narrative styles, leaving the audience to determine for itself exactly what meaning it should derive from the play.

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In addition to the general questions you should consider when reading short stories (above), please prepare discussion answers to the following questions.

1. Think about the difference between Detached Autobiography and the other forms of first person narration we’ve looked at thus far. How does this form of narration affect the speaker’s perception as well as the reader’s perception of the events in the story? What differences are there between the boy whose experience the narrator shows us and the man who is the narrator? What is the boy’s attitude towards what happens to him? What is the man’s attitude towards the same experience? What accounts for this difference?
   
   
2. How is the tone of the narrator a crucial clue to this difference? Note the techniques the author uses to create tone.
   
   
3. What is the effect of the priest’s subtle use of verbal irony? What other kinds of irony are evident in the story?
   

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Background on the Author

Samuel Beckett’s drama is most closely associated with the Theater of the Absurd, a form of theater which developed in the post WWII period (1950–1960). Absurdists viewed the world as bizarrely illogical, and depicted it in a bizarrely illogical manner.

In Beckett’s plays, characters are portrayed taking part in repetitive actions that demonstrate the meaninglessness of their existence. Using a minimalist approach with all unnecessary spectacle and characters left offstage, Beckett combines tragedy and comedy in a disheartening illustration of the human condition and the absurdity of existence.

Although Beckett claimed that he was not connected with the post WWII Existentialists, his plays tend to ponder many of the essential features of Existentialism:

1. Life is fleeting.
2. Life is almost totally insignificant in the grand scheme of the world.
   
3. Time and eternity are meaningless concepts.
   
4. Individuals feel lonely and alienated as a direct result of their inability to communicate meaningfully
   
5. Human beings are mysterious, even to themselves.

Discussion Questions

1. What kind of narration is “Krapp’s Last Tape”? Is it a soliloquy (the theater’s equivalent of interior monolgue)? Dramatic monologue? Detached autobiography? All three?
   
   
2. How has Krapp changed over time? How has his perception of himself changed over time? How does Krapp react to himself at the various stages of his life?
   
   
3. Note Krapp’s use of language over time. How does his language change throughout the various stages of his life? How do these changes develop his character?
   
   
4. Consider the following commentary by Dr. James Knowlson, eminent Beckett critic, and find examples that illustrate his observations.
   
   “Though Krapp regards his mind as spirit alien to his body, he tries with the only instrument he possesses, namely his mind, to understand this separation and to effect a possible reconciliation between the two…The consequence of this view of incompatibility of sense and spirit and of Krapp’s attempts to reconcile them intellectually is seen embodied in the play in frequent images of light and dark, of eyes opening and closing, of light, fire and clear water on the one hand, and of darkness, mist, and heat on the other.”
   
   
   
5. Read the last lines of the play that begin, “ Perhaps my best years are gone.” What meaning did these words have when Krapp first said them? What meaning do they have when he listens to them again at the end of the play? What kind of irony exists in this contrast?
   
   
6. In “Krapp’s Last Tape,” Beckett examines themes associated with loss, regret, unhappiness, and self-disgust. What specific points does the play make about these subjects?