The Reader's Approach to Short Stories vs Novels

I’m relieved that we’re starting to read short stories, not just because school is getting more and more hectic but also so we can read the whole story, not just excerpt, so we can get the whole effect of the work and analyze it in its entirety. In reading the previous excerpts from novels I’ve felt like I was only scratching the surface of what the work is all about and all the ideas and character development that takes place. In long novels there is a long time and many pages for us as readers to figure everything and all the characters out. We as readers become attached to the characters because we spend more time learning about how they act in their life as the plot unfolds. In short stories it seems like we don’t have time to learn about complex characters in depth and analyze their characteristics. Instead, it seems like we are told directly how the characters are and we are meant to trust the narrator in his or her analysis moreso than in long stories where we have more experience with the characters to judge for ourselves. For example, in “Desiree’s Baby” Desiree’s personality is summed up in one sentence, “For the girl grew to be beautiful and genle, affectionate and sincere, -- the idol of Valmonde” (Chopin 517). The reader is left with no choice but to agree and depend upon the author and the narrator’s opinion on the matter as little other detail is given concerning her character.

So when I read short stories I feel like I don’t have to analyze characters as much but at the same time I have to analyze the wording of the narrator more. Since every word counts, there is little fluff and mostly everything is meaningful and should be analyzed. I find myself reading lines and phrasing over and over again to better understand what exactly the author wants me as a reader to understand or the idea I am supposed to take from the words. I’m not necessarily reading too differently, I’m still going through the work at about the same pace with maybe a few more notes in the margins than I had in the novel excerpts, but I find that I am analyzing the wording and small details mentioned in the short story far more than in the novels because they must be included because they are significant.