The short story and the bigger picture: Epiphanic analepses and violence in American literature

Abstract

Self-sufficient and epiphanic, the analeptic short story is presented in this article as a separate type of narrative that exists within the larger novel. Distinct from the analepsis in general, such short stories can be read as autonomous in that, despite their brevity, they are self-contained and cohesive fictions, able to stand alone and still function as a whole. As this article demonstrates, analeptic short stories are revelatory and can serve to destabilize the larger narratives in which they are found. Through an analysis of violence and childhood trauma in novels such as A. M. Homes’s The End of Alice and its companion piece Appendix A, along with Thomas Harris’s Red Dragon, this article offers a discussion on the ways in which analeptic short stories are pivotal elements of their wider context, and come to eclipse the larger narrative through revelation and a concise exploration of the characters and events within. Thus, it is argued that the analeptic short story is a specific type of short fiction, one that raises intriguing theoretical questions surrounding the American short story.