THE SHADOW

In reading “The Shadow”, by Hans Christian Anderson, and “ The Nose” by Nikolai Vasilyevich Gogol, they both surprise the reader by having an unrealistic initiating incident. Both stories give the reader full of excitement, and unexpected ending. “On the Aim and Technique of the Short Story”, by Edgar Allan Poe, indicates techniques and the main criteria to be a formal short stories, and hence I will compare what is said in Poe’s article and the two stories. As in Poe’s article been described, a short story shouldn’t be too long, or too short. This mean a short story should be able to read within an hour. Every scene is important in the story, and it must be write in full length in order to unify the entire story, and not leaving for the reader to guess what had happened in that scene. In “The Nose”, Gogol is separating the story into three chapters. Separating the story in chapters can identify difference stage of the story, or different passage that is important to the author. The length of “The Shadow” is less than “The Nose”, because different story has different plot, we can’t only judge by its length, but we should look for its contents. For a short story to be extinct to others, the author might create his own narrative voice. This is what the author trying to give idea to the readers. Using correct use of grammar and proper noun is also important, since this is what the reader will understand from the author, Another point mention in Poe’s article is the unity of effect of a short story. In order to make connection between scenes, the author must know the whole story, from the beginning to the end. When a story is unified, then the story would be more interesting In “The Nose”, and “The Shadow”, the author are know well of the story, as we can notice by looking at the ending of the stories.