the tale is a literary style that uses the narrative as predominant textual typology. Is characterized by short stories, with few characters, a conflict and a climax.
Unlike a novel, which is a long story that brings a lot of details, the short story is short and only provides the essential information for the development of the plot.
see some examples of stories:
1. The man who knew Javanese - Lima Barreto
This story by Lima Barreto recounts a conversation between two friends in a bar. The narrator, Castelo, tells his friend that he was in financial difficulties and found an ad for a Javanese teacher. Even without knowing the language, he thought it would be a good opportunity.
A Javanese language teacher is needed. Letters etc." Well, I said here to me, there is a position that will not have many competitors; if I missed four words, I would introduce myself.
Castelo went to a library, consulted encyclopedias and learned about the alphabet and some words in Javanese.
He applied for the position and was called to visit Baron de Jacuecanga, who wanted to take classes to read a book that had been inherited to the family.
- And where did you learn Javanese? he asked, with that stubbornness peculiar to old people.
I didn't count on this question, but I immediately concocted a lie. I told him my father was Javanese.
Castelo was hired by the baron and over time he gained much prestige because they believed he spoke Javanese. The baron gave up on learning the language and asked Castelo just to translate the book. Castelo invented stories that were never disproved, as no one knew Javanese.
He made me live in his house, he filled me with presents, he raised my salary. Finally, I spent a regal life.
The man gained prestige, received a post at the consulate, lived in Havana and went to Europe. People admired him for the knowledge he possessed, knowledge that was never put to the test.
In the street, the informed pointed out to me, saying to the others: "There goes the guy who knows Javanese." In the bookstores, the grammarians consulted me about the placement of pronouns in such jargon of the islands of Probe. I received letters from scholars in the interior, the newspapers quoted my knowledge and I refused to accept a group of students eager to understand this Javanese. At the invitation of the editorial staff, I wrote a four-column article on ancient and modern Javanese literature in Jornal do Comércio...
2. The weaver girl - Marina Colassanti
The weaver girl tells the story of a girl who spent her days weaving and everything she weaved came to life - the sun, the clouds, the rain. If it made him hungry, he would weave a fish and soon there was a fish on his table, if he wove milk, the milk would appear.
If the sun was too strong and the petals hung in the garden, the girl would put thick gray threads of the fluffiest cotton onto the shuttle. Soon, in the gloom brought by the clouds, she chose a silver thread, which in long stitches edged over the fabric. Light, the rain came to greet her at the window.
All the girl did was weave, but one day she felt lonely and weaved a husband. When he finished weaving it, the man opened the door of his house and entered. The girl was thinking about what else she would weave to make her feel even happier and she weaved her children.
And happy he was, for a while. But if the man had thought of children, he soon forgot about them. Because she had discovered the power of the loom, she thought of nothing else but all the things it could give her.
The man then proceeded to demand that the girl work to buy a bigger house and then a palace. The girl began to weave to offer her husband the luxuries she desired. She felt sad and thought how good it would be to be alone again.
One night she waited for her husband to sleep, got up and went to her loom. She began to undo the palaces, carriages and everything in it.
The night ended when the husband found the bed hard, he woke up, and, startled, looked around. He didn't have time to get up. She was already undoing the dark design of her shoes, and he saw her feet disappearing, her legs disappearing. Quickly, nothing rose through her body, she took the upright chest, the feathered hat.
3. Edmundo the Skeptic - Cecília Meireles
Edmundo is a skeptical boy, who does not believe what he is told and wants to discover his truths from his own experiences. He broke a tooth trying to bite into a plum pit, then nearly drowned in a kite of water.
He was told that by diving headfirst into the backyard water kite, he could drown. He was not frightened by the idea of death: he wanted to know if he was being told the truth. And he just didn't die because the gardener was nearby.
Edmundo saw adults as adversaries, as people who tell lies. At a birthday party, a magician enchanted the children with his presentations, but Edmundo didn't believe in magic, he went to tinker with the artist's arsenal and the magic ended.
(Edmundo spoiled everything. Edmundo did not admit the lie. Edmundo died early. And who knows, my God, with what truths?)
Understand what a narrative and meet your features.
What is a short story?
Tales are short narratives, they are stories with a beginning, middle, and end, and they usually have a single conflict. Because they are short, they happen in a limited space and time.
Júlio Cortázar, an important Argentine writer and short story writer, differentiated the short story from a novel using the following metaphor:
Compared to a boxing match, romance wins on points, while the tale wins by knockout.
The tale is a quick story, which often ends with a twist. But despite being short, it's a dense story that engages the reader. Because it's a quick and engaging story, it's ideal to read it all at once.
Brazil has important short story writers, such as Clarice Lispector, Machado de Assis, Lygia Fagundes Telles, Carlos Drummond de Andrade and Álvares de Azevedo.
know more about tale and about the narrative text.
short story structure
The stories are composed of the following elements:
- Characters: because they are short stories, short stories usually have few characters;
- Storyteller: the narrator is the one who tells the story. He can be in 1st person, when he participates in the story, and in 3rd person, when he observes it. In the case of being a 3rd person narrator, he can be just the observer, who reports what he sees, or an omniscient narrator, who knows what the characters think and knows the past and the future;
- Time: time refers to the time when the story takes place;
- Space: space is the place where history takes place;
- Plot: the plot is the sequence of events;
- Conflict: the conflict is the problem-situation that is experienced by the characters, as they are short stories, it is common to have only one conflict.
See also the meaning of plot and romance.