Raymond Carver’s ‘Elephant and Other Stories’ and Ray Bradbury’s ‘The Martian Chronicles’ and How Their Explorations of Form and Genre Influenced My Writing.
‘Elephant and Other Stories’ by Raymond Carver and ‘The Martian Chronicles’ by Ray Bradbury are both short story collections that explore the effectiveness of the short story form and the way in which literature provides the ability to comment on contemporary issues. Despite their contrasting genres, both Carver and Bradbury present ideas about human behaviour and the way in which this can affect other factors on either a personal or wider scale. Carver’s anthology contains seven short stories, all of which follow a similar concept and explore the livelihood of an ordinary American and the impact that everyday issues can have on their lives, and how these characters are shaped by such difficult situations, due to his focus on the realism of life it has been suggested that Carver is writing in the ‘dirty realism’ genre. In contrast, Bradbury uses both the Science-Fiction genre and a consistent use of defamiliarisation to explore real life issues from a distance, making comparisons between Earth and Mars and how human behaviour can and will impact the future of Earth, perhaps providing a caution to the current society to be aware of how rapidly the world was changing at the time. Both writers encourage the reader to use their own experiences to guide their interpretations of the stories, which can sometimes change the direction of a character or narrative development. The techniques showcased throughout by both Bradbury and Carver encouraged me to explore multiple aspects of writing; the short story form, alternative approaches to writing about contemporary issues, subtler methods of conveying meaning and the importance of audience positioning, all of which have been crucial in my development as both a reader and a writer.
In the titled short story, ‘Elephant’, Carver explores the financial burden of the narrator as a result of his family, with a primary focus on how the pressure to support them is damaging to not only the narrator as an individual but the damage it causes to his relationships with his family in general. “I was sorry about my brother’s troubles. But I had troubles of my own.” (Carver, Elephant and Other Stories, pg.77), the explicit presentation of family life differs to many presentations across literature, Carver takes a more gritty and realistic approach than most, but it works to enhance the overall effectiveness of the story and the collection as a whole. Carver’s originality of concept and his distinctive ‘show and not tell’ style is extremely effective; the reader is positioned in such a way that encourages them to actively engage with not just his writing in general but his characterisation, using their own experiences to influence how they perceive aspects of the plot.
Carver’s simplistic syntax has often been described as minimalistic, however, his construction of characters is complex and layered, and these characterisations provide enough depth and intrigue to keep the short stories interesting throughout. The focus of each story is the narrator themselves and their interactions with the other characters, reflecting how a strong construction of character is extremely effective in portraying themes and ideas. Unlike some of the other stories, ‘Elephant’ positions readers to feel increasingly engaged with the characters, and ultimately what happens to them, “He had it floored, and were going flat out. We streaked down that round in his big unpaid-for car.” (Carver, Elephant and Other Stories, pg.90), the scene is intensified by the focus on the speed of the car and the ending is left to be slightly subjective, which differs to the often-guided endings that can be seen in his other works. Such as ‘Boxes’ where the reader has been slowly guided to understand that the narrator is internally struggling to accept his mother’s move and the way in which her focus on her impending death has unsettled him. Carver’s ‘show not tell’ style is repeatedly shown to construct effective stories throughout this collection, giving the reader a new experience with each story despite similarities in the circumstances of the protagonists. As a writer, Carver encouraged me to trust my reader more, and to take the time to carefully select and construct my sentences and to not overly explain everything to a reader but instead allow them to form meanings and interpretations themselves.
The short story form is very fitting to Carver’s style, it provides enough space for him to establish detailed characterisation and plot structure but not too much to encourage an
overboard of description or a word heavy story which would fail to captivate the reader’s attention or keep them engaged with the characters or plot, and would ultimately decrease the success of Carver’s collection. This clearly contrasts to a novel, which due to the expectation of an extended reading period, authors often repeat different points throughout in order to prioritise the relevant ideas when they become prominent to the narrative again, this contrast of form and both Carver’s and Bradbury’s presentation of the short story form highlighted the importance of form to me and the way in which it can contribute equally to a piece of writing than the writing itself.
Throughout the whole collection Carver uses very similar characters in each of the seven stories. Typically, the narrator of each story is an average working class American male, this continuation of character type enables Carver to explore multiple scenarios across America, and further enforce the realism style that Carver is often renowned for. This genre enables Carver to draw on real events that individuals experience and subsequently his writing has the ability to be interpreted differently by people dependant on their own personal experiences. It can be suggested that Carver himself uses some of his personal experiences within his short stories. Specifically, the way in which alcohol and alcoholism is often a main factor throughout his short stories, in ‘Elephant’ the narrator is a reformed alcoholic, and how similar to his own experience of divorce in ‘Blackbird Pie’ the husband struggles to accept that his wife wants to leave him. As this collection was published posthumously, it provides a more intimate and raw insight into the suggested autobiographical inspirations of Carver’s writing and again can be seen to enhance the impact of his writing on readers.
Although Carver can be seen to use some of his personal experiences as a basis for his characters and plot, Ray Bradbury can be seen to use the concerns of 1950’s society. Under the science-fiction genre, Bradbury strays away from realism throughout ‘The Martian Chronicles’ which is a selection of short stories with an overarching narrative. However, although seemingly unrealistic, it is quickly made apparent throughout that he is drawing on the concerns of 1950’s society and the way in which technological advances were going to impact the future of our society and planet in general. Despite the novel containing short stories, there is an overarching narrative which differs to Carver’s individual stories and is effective in collectively bringing ‘The Martian Chronicles’ together as a whole, despite Bradbury’s exploration of new characters in each story and also the way in which he focuses on a different time period. Due to the unusual form, it could be suggested that this would be a difficult read to follow, but the reader is able to keep with Bradbury’s writing through his simple and directive syntax. Furthermore, some characters reappear throughout, such as Sam Parkhill, who first appears in ‘-And the Moon Be Still as Bright’ and then again in ‘The Off Season’, allowing readers to develop an understanding for his character as well as Bradbury using it as a way to keep the reader engaged with the text as a whole, not just as a short story collection.
Bradbury uses defamiliarisation in order to comment on the contemporary issues of the 1950’s without causing offence or panic due to the established distance. In ‘Ylla’ both Ylla and Yll reflect a typical 50’s married couple but due to the fact that they are Martians, Bradbury is able to have a harsher commentary on how they live. Bradbury can be seen to comment on the patriarchal constraints of marriage, Yll restricts what his wife can do and Bradbury’s presentation Yll is a harsh one, he is the villain in this short story, “Keep your silly, feminine dreams to yourself!” (Bradbury, The Martian Chronicles, pg.19). For characters where gender is only really defined by the addition of a vowel to her name, this comment on ‘feminine dreams’ is most likely to be Bradbury’s attempt to comment on the inequality in marriages in 1950’s society. The reader is positioned to feel sympathy to Ylla and the way in which her husband takes away her dreams, especially when he shoots both of the Earth Men. The placement of ‘Ylla’ as the second story in the novel is well thought, it allows readers to understand that although Bradbury is talking about Martians and the future, he is also commenting on the current state of American society. But, whilst under the science-fiction genre, which is often perceived as a genre of experimentation and change, Bradbury is able to address the fears of society whilst creating enough distance as to not cause any offence, he balances his commentary of real life with the fiction of Martian life. Although Bradbury uses the science-fiction genre in order to explore such topics from a distance, and the majority of the novel is set on Mars, ‘The Martian Chronicles’ does not have a focus on science, but instead the moral principles of the potential future circumstance, this ensures that Bradbury can connect with the reader and not isolate them with scientific jargon they may not understand and so by focusing on the experience of individuals readers are invested in the stories and what happens as the plot develops.
Unlike Carver, Bradbury uses more poetic devices within his language as opposed to Carver’s simplistic style, there is frequent alliteration and assonance throughout the short stories and quite an extensive use of metaphors and similes which portray both descriptions and situational comparisons between Earth and Mars. Additionally, Bradbury uses detailed description to submerges readers into the scene, “He felt something in the seat behind him, something as frail as your breath on a cold morning, something as blue as hickory-wood smoke at twilight, something like old white lace, something like a snowfall, something like the icy rime of winter on the brittle sedge.” (Bradbury, The Martian Chronicles, pg.180), his extensive description and use of similes is extremely effective, and although uncommon for a science-fiction novel to include such language techniques Bradbury is further able to encourage and engage with different readers as he doesn’t follow the traditional science-fiction style and so has the opportunity to reach wider readers. His combination of language devices encouraged me to begin experimenting with traditional genre conventions and the combination of these with alternative conventions from a different and unexpected genre, as portrayed by Bradbury’s combination of poetic devices within science-fiction.
Both Carver and Bradbury’s choice of title for each short story encouraged me to title my pieces, the way both use carefully selected titles and the way in which the titles typically hold the most meaning after the story has been read was an interesting concept to me. This concept grounds the control that both Carver and Bradbury still have over their stories, the titles can be seen to reflect what it is that the writers want readers to take away from the story most and usually will hold some importance to the direction of narrative or characterisation. For example; Bradbury’s title ‘The Off Season’, is humorous due to Sam Parkhill’s attempt to set up a hot-dog stand during Martian off season, which is interpreted by the reader after they have read the story as opposed to setting up expectations of the story beforehand. Similarly, Carver’s ‘Elephant’ can be seen to capture the way in which the narrator is juggling multiple heavy burdens at once and is suffering from it. In my Creative Portfolio ‘Fixed’ (pg 1-3) might give the impression to the reader of recovery but as my intention is that as they read the short story their understanding changes, and they begin to understand that the narrator is instead fixed to her current circumstance, which I felt was effective in reflecting the power a title can hold over readers understanding of a text and the writers’ ideas.
Overall, both Carver and Bradbury present both complexing and inspiring approaches towards themes and ideas, as well as how to use the form of a short story most effectively. Carver’s style inspired my piece ‘Fixed’, (Creative Portfolio pg.1-3) comparatively to him I used a female protagonist and also experimented with a more modern setting, however I aimed to showcase the core concept of Carver’s ‘show don’t tell’ style in order to reflect how his techniques and explicit presentations of mundane life actually creates the pedestal for an interesting and unique piece of writing, and how this can be used to explore concepts of ordinary life and the hardships that are experienced. ‘Excuses’ (Creative Portfolio pg.4-5) is intended to be a fast paced and more experimental short story, using inspiration from both Carver and Bradbury to create a short story that captures the reality of an individual’s life and family relationships within that but incorporating a more detailed level of description through poetic language and the inclusion of metaphors and similes. My last Creative Piece is another short story ‘Assurance’ (pg.6-7) in which I explored the short story form and how it could work in order to write about a ritual. I feel that both Carver and Bradbury are very interesting and unique authors to have studied, and both ‘Elephant and Other Stories’ and ‘The Martian Chronicles’ have guided my approach to writing and how I write for an audience as a whole