Character Delineation in American Minimalist Short Fiction
Character Delineation in American Minimalist Short Fiction

Summary/Abstract: This article examines the problematic relationship of the self to patterns of all kind as reflected in post-World War 2 American short fiction and highlights specific ways in which language is used to organise the character’s 'reality'. We point out how the minimalist orientation in the American short fiction of the late 70s and early 80s, through reductive and allusive techniques, explores the contemporary loss of a sense of history and the moral authority of marginality. Characters in minimalist short fiction are shown to have a static view of life in which things felt but left unstated have value.

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