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Liberating The Zeitgeist: Using Metaphor & Emotion To Unlock The Transcendency Of The Short Story, Vincent Bish

General Student Scholarship

Barometers have often been likened to short stories—measuring momentary shifts in atmospheric pressure. Short Stories, like barometers are sensitive instruments, recording impressions about the stresses our world is under. What separates Short Stories though from their meteorological counterparts is that, what they measure is infinitely more elusive than the pressure air places on the Earth. What they measure are the prevailing spirits of a times—the Zeitgeist.

These four authors, Fitzgerald, Hemingway, Joyce, and Crane, have, in their respective texts, created stories that not only measure this spirit but capture it. From a writer’s perspective, these authors imbedded the zeitgeist of …