Where is the Short Story?
Where is the Short Story? Why did E.M. Forster Stop Writing Fiction? The triumph of Matter over Spirit , two world wars, the postmodern machine society-all these seem to have shut “the door which leads to soul”. Hannah Arendt in The Human Condition aptly criticizes the modern age : “ It is quite inconceivable that the modern age-which began with such an unprecedented and promising outburst of human activity-may end in the deadliest, most sterile passivity history has ever known.” The problem for the short-story writer in this milieu is how to write stories which have genuine emotional depth, and directness in the presentation of situations. E. M. Forster had experienced this difficulty: I think one of the reasons why I stopped writing novels is that the social aspect of the world changed so much. I had been accustomed to write about the old-fashioned world with its honor and its family life and its comparative peace. All that went, and...