Literature Network » Stephen Crane

Stops on the way to "Shiloh": a special case for literary empiricism. (The Short Story: Theory and Practice)

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From: Style
Date: 19930922
Author:Lohafer, Susan

One of literature's memorable semiotic moments occurs in Stephen Crane's classic short story "The Open Boat." The desperate men in the lifeboat see a speck on the distant shore. Eventually, the speck becomes a man. He is waving his arms at the crew. Relief! Rescue at last? No, it appears that the man is only giving them a friendly hail, misreading their condition as they misread his signal.

This essay is about other semiotic moments, some of them in a short story by Bobbie Ann Mason, some of them in the history of short-fiction theory. I will be waving my arms too, but let me ...

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