If it is a tale of
disillusionment on a prairie farm, with the world and life
flattening out together, some sharp climax must be provided
nevertheless, because that is the only way in which to tell a
story. Indeed it is easy to see the dangers which arise from
sacrificing truth to a formula in the interests of efficiency.
This is the limitation by form; the limitation by subject is quite
as annoying. American writers from Poe down have been fertile in
plots. Especially since O. Henry took the place of Kipling as a
literary master, ingenuity, inventiveness, cleverness in its
American sense, have been squandered upon the short story. But
plots do not make variety. Themes make variety. Human nature
regarded in its multitudinous phases makes variety. There are only
a few themes in current American short stories,--the sentimental
theme from which breed ten thousand narratives; the theme of
intellectual analysis and of moral psychology favored by the
"literary" magazines; the "big-business" theme; the theme of
American effrontery; the social-contrast theme; the theme of
successful crime. Add a few more, and you will have them all.
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