LESSON 3: Introduction to Contemporary Literature

1950- PRESENT
“This literary era defines a time period but it also describes particular style
and quality of writing.”
What is Contemporary Literature?
The literature of the contemporary period not only refers to a
quality/style of writing but also to poetry and prose, which includes works of
fiction such as: novels, novellas, essays, and dramatic works.
Characteristics of the Contemporary Style
 Reality-based stories
 Believable story-line, sometimes portraying a harsher reality
or degradation of society
 Current, modern setting
 “Well-defined, realistic, highly developed” and strong character (s).
 Well-structured
 Writing is “more character driven than plot driven”
Historical Events during this period
January 1, 1953- The national Library is established in Ottawa.
September 3, 1962- The Trans-Canada Highway opens.
February 15, 1965- Canada gets a new red-and-white maple leaf flag.
April 2, 1975- The CN Tower in Toronto becomes the world’s tallest free-
standing structure.
July 17, 1976- The Olympic Games are held in Montreal.
June 27, 1980- O Canada is officially adopted as Canada’s national anthem.
April 12, 1980- Terry Fox begins his “Marathon of Hope”, cross country run.
1989- One dollar bills stop being produced and are fully replaced by the
loonie.
June 25, 1993- Kim Campbell becomes the first female prime minister of
Canada.
January 4-9, 1998- The most destructive and disruptive ice storm in
Canadian history occurs.
Genres of the period, and topics that were written about in literature were
largely influenced by the historical events which were taking place at the
current time. A notable genre of the contemporary period, which is still
popular today is Young Adult or YA.
GENRES OF CONTEMPORARY LITERATURE
Genres of this time included novels and poetry. Flash fiction, short
stories, slam poetry, plays, memoirs, and autobiographies were also
popular.
Authors found inspiration in the events of the time period. They often wrote
about the realities and experiences that had occurred, no matter how brutal
they may have been.
“The literary innovations of this period were largely influenced by the
surroundings and the changes that were occurring in it…”

I. STORY
At the end of the lesson, the students should be able to:
a. Acquaint themselves with styles and concerns of contemporary
stories.

WHAT IS A STORY?
A story or narrative is a connected series of events told through words
(written or spoken), imagery (still and moving), body language,
performance, music, or any other form of communication. You can tell a
story about anything, and the events described can be real or imaginary;
covering both fiction and nonfiction; and leaving no topic, genre, or style
untouched. There are stories about all things and all times; past, present
and future. Whenever you’re telling somebody about a series of events, you
are telling a story, no matter what the subject nor when they occurred. As
such, stories are of great value to human culture, and are some of the
oldest, most important parts of life.
Aside from being a part of every single type of literature, stories are at the
foundation of creativity and part of just about everything we do, particularly
when it comes to entertainment, recording, and reporting of any form. So,
they are shared in all different ways—from oral and written storytelling or
journalism; to TV, film, and radio; to fine arts, stage performance and music;
and so on.
In one form or another, stories have been a part of human culture and
society for thousands of years—likely since man has existed! They’re found in the
past and present of people from every culture, religion, and ethnicity;
in every region and language. So, all of that considered, the concept of a
story is actually a bit difficult to fully cover or describe. Some would say
that life is made up of a series of never-ending stories. From a simple
commute to school or work, to all the events of our lives, everything has a
story.
 ➢ EXAMPLES OF STORY
Here are a few examples of the same story told different ways.
You can sometimes tell a story in just one line:
The girl met the love of her life and lived happily until the day she died.
Or, it could be more detailed:
When the girl was 22, she met the love of her life. It was her last day
of college, and when she saw him, she knew he was the one she was going
to be with forever—and the boy knew the same. After graduation, the boy
and the girl ran away together to elope. They lived together happily for the
rest of their days.
Now really, even the second example is just a tiny story. We can tell it in
all kinds of ways and of all different lengths, from one line to a series of
novels. After all, if the couple lived an entire lifetime together, there would
be countless events that together make up the story of their life.

➢ TYPES OF STORIES
The range of types of stories is pretty much endless. For that reason, this
article will divide stories into two very broad categories—fiction and
nonfiction. Within each there are a huge number of possibilities in terms of
subject matter, genre, type of delivery (oral, written, performance),
narrative style, and so on.

Fiction stories
Fiction stories are based on made-up or imaginary events. There
arezens upon dozens of types of fiction stories and genres, including but not
at all limited to:
 Fairy tales
 Folklore
 Mythology
 Legends
 Epics
 Dramas
 Adventure stories
  Science-fiction
 Love stories
Non-fiction stories  Horror stories
 Ghost stories
 Historical fiction
 Bedtime stories
 Fantasy

Non-fiction stories can cover any kind of real-life event or experience.

But, they often fall into these kinds of categories:
 Historical events
 Science
 News and current events
 Love
 Biographies and
 Family
autobiographies
 Travel stories
 Memories and experiences
 Survivor stories
 Cultural history
 War stories
 Crime and justice
 ➢ IMPORTANCE OF STORY
Stories are, have been, and always will be an absolutely essential part of
human culture. Stories are how we learn about each other, our past, and our
cultures. Whether they are created for entertainment or to recount a real-
life event—new stories are literally being lived, told, and created every
second of every day. So, even if there was only one story for every person
who ever lived, that would still be billions of stories in the world; it would be
impossible to measure how many have existed.

➢ EXAMPLES OF STORY IN LITERATURE

As literature is, first and foremost, written storytelling, there are limitless
examples of stories in literature; across every style and genre of writing.
We’ve been writing down stories for thousands of years—truth be told,
written stories have taught us most of what we know about mankind’s
history and culture! That said, here are a few examples:

Example 1
Author Shel Silverstein is known for the quirky and memorable stories
he tells through poetry. Here is “Masks” from his collection of poems
Everything On It:
She had blue skin.
And so did he.
He kept it hid
And so did she.
They searched for blue
Their whole life through,
Then passed right by—
And never knew.
As you’ve just read, Silverstein tells a whole story in just eight short
lines of poetry. Tons of poems do the same in even fewer lines. Either way,
you can see that a story definitely doesn’t have to be lengthy.
Example 2
A fairy tale is a classic type of story about imaginary events. When we
want to tell a fairy tale, we often start with the famous words “Once upon a
time,” which adds a more whimsical feel to what we are about to share.
Here’s an example from Rapunzel of Grimm’s Fairy Tales:
Once upon a time there was a man and a woman who had long, but to
no avail, wished for a child. Finally, the woman came to believe that the
good Lord would fulfill her wish. Through the small rear window of these
people’s house they could see into a splendid garden that was filled with
the most beautiful flowers and herbs. The garden was surrounded by a high
wall, and no one dared enter, because it belonged to a sorceress who
possessed great power and was feared by everyone.
The fairy tale’s intro is just a small part of the story, telling us about
the beginning and a bit about the characters who will be the focus.
Example 3
Of course, newspapers and magazines are filled with stories. As you
know, a news story reports on real events that have happened. Here’s a
passage from a CNN Tech article:
There’s no other shopping bonanza quite like Alibaba’s Singles Day,
which has once again smashed records. The tech giant reported $17.8
billion in sales during this year’s frenzy, breaking the record of $14.3 billion
set in 2015. That’s more than Black Friday and Cyber Monday combined. 34
Reading a news story gives you an update on events that are
happening throughout the world. Here, Tech Crunch writes about China’s
11.11 Singles’ Day, the world’s biggest shopping event. The story
specifically reports on the money that Alibaba made in their latest Singles’
Day event.

➢ EXAMPLES OF STORY IN POPULAR CULTURE

Stories are a part of every type of today’s media, from TV, film, and
radio; to what gets shared on social media platforms; music; stage
performance; art exhibitions, celebrity magazines—you name it, and you’ll
find stories. But here are a few examples of stories in popular film and TV
culture, told through performance, music, and animation.
Example 1
Cult-classic fantasy film The Never-ending Story is about a story that
goes on as long as time exists. It unfolds in real time as the reader is
reading it, who in this case is a boy named Bastian. But it’s soon revealed
that he has more of a stake in the story than he ever imagined…
The Never-ending Story (9/10) Movie CLIP – Call My Name (1984) HD
Bastian finally realizes that he’s a part of the story he’s been reading, so in
a way, it’s actually about him. So long as he keeps reading, the story will
continue.
Example 2
Everybody knows Will Smith’s retro anthem “Prince of Bel Air,” the
theme song to the hit ’90s sitcom Fresh Prince of Bel Air. In the show’s intro,
Smith uses this rap to fill the audience in on his backstory:
The fresh prince of Bel Air theme song [short version]
The song quickly reviews the story of his past, which serves as an
intro to what the show is about. He recounts the events that led to his life
being turned “upside down”; the story of how he became the Prince of Bel
Air.
Example 3
In Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, Hermione reads the story of
the Three Brothers, which is part of the wizarding world.
The Story of the Three Brothers is actually a story within a story—
Harry Potter’s story. Rowling tries to make the wizarding world seem as real 35
as possible, and adding background is a big part of that. By sharing stories
that her characters read, she is giving evidence of the wizarding world’s
storytelling and literary culture…and perhaps even some history.

➢ CONCLUSION
Stories are a major part of every aspect of our lives, from what we
read to what we do to what we talk and think about. They’re also crucial to
our understanding of history and culture, and have been recorded and
passed on since man’s earliest days. Stories have always been and will
always be at the core of not only literature, but life!
ACTIVITY 3.1

Direction: Read and analyze the story of “All Summer in a Day” by

Ray Bradbury. Write your interpretation and analysis about the
story, use the rubric to be guided for making the given task.

RUBRICS

4 3
Criteria 2 1
Exceeding Meeting
Somewhat
Poorly
Organized. organized.
Organization Cohesive and organized.
Can easily The flow of the
well-organized Ideas are
understand the content
order scattered and
flow of sometimes cut
structured confusion take
content. in or
place.
interrupted.
Portrays
Present poor
appropriate Present the
Indicates understanding of
information to information
Content information the content
the relation and that is easy to
accurately. relating to the
related follow.
other concepts.
concepts.

Used peculiar Used materials Show some Shows minimal

materials for for materials for materials for
Creativity
enhancement enhancement enhancement enhancement of
of ideas. of ideas. of ideas. ideas.

Create multiple Create some Create Ideas are not

connections of connections of minimal connected from
Ideas
ideas and well ideas from the connection of the other
establish. topic. ideas about concept.
the topic.
 All Summer in a Day by Ray Bradbury
"Ready?"
"Ready."
"Now?"
"Soon."
"Do the scientists really know? Will it happen today, will
it?" "Look, look; see for yourself!"
The children pressed to each other like so many roses, so many weeds,
intermixed, peering out for a look at the hidden sun.
It rained.
It had been raining for seven years; thousands upon thousands of days
compounded and filled from one end to the other with rain, with the
drum and gush of water, with the sweet crystal fall of showers and the
concussion of storms so heavy they were tidal waves come over the
islands. A thousand
forests had been crushed under the rain and grown up a thousand times
to be crushed again. And this was the way life was forever on the
planet Venus, and this was the schoolroom of the children of the rocket
men and women who had come to a raining world to set up civilization
and live out their lives.
"It's stopping, it's
stopping!" "Yes, yes!"
Margot stood apart from them, from these children who could never
remember a time when there wasn't rain and rain and rain. They
were all nine years old, and if there had been a day, seven years ago,
when the sun came out for an hour and showed its face to the
stunned world, they could not recall. Sometimes, at night, she heard
them stir, in remembrance, and she knew they were dreaming and
remembering gold or a yellow crayon or a coin large enough to buy
the world with. She knew they thought they remembered a
warmness, like a blushing in the face, in the body, in the arms and
legs and trembling hands. But then they always awoke to the tatting
drum, the endless shaking down of clear bead necklaces upon the
roof, the walk, the gardens, the forests, and their dreams were gone.
All day yesterday they had read in class about the sun. About how like a
lemon it was, and how hot. And they had written small stories or essays
or poems about it:
I think the sun is a flower that blooms for just one hour.
That was Margot's poem, read in a quiet voice in the still classroom while
the rain was falling outside.
"Aw, you didn't write that!" protested one of the
boys. "I did," said Margot. "I did."
"William!" said the teacher.
But that was yesterday. Now the rain was slackening, and the children
were crushed in the great thick windows. Where's teacher?"
"She'll be back."
"She'd better hurry, we'll miss it!"

They turned on themselves, like a feverish wheel, all tumbling spokes.

Margot stood alone. She was a very frail girl who looked as if she had
been lost in the rain for years and the rain had washed out the blue from
her eyes and the red from her mouth and the yellow from her hair. She
was an old photograph dusted from an album, whitened away, and if
she spoke at all her voice would be a ghost. Now she stood, separate,
staring at the rain and the loud wet world beyond the huge glass.
"What're you looking at?" said
William. Margot said nothing.
"Speak when you're spoken to."
He gave her a shove. But she did not move; rather she let herself be
moved only by him and nothing else. They edged away from her, they
would not look at her. She felt them go away. And this was because she
would play no games with them in the echoing tunnels of the
underground city. If they tagged her and ran, she stood blinking after
them and did not follow. When the class sang songs about happiness and
life and games her lips barely moved. Only when they sang about the sun
and the summer did her lips move as she watched the drenched
windows. And then, of course, the biggest crime of all was that she
had come here only five years ago from Earth, and she remembered
the sun and the way the sun was and the sky was when she was four
in Ohio. And they, they had been on Venus all their lives, and they had
been only two years old when last the sun came out and had long since
forgotten the color and heat of it and the way it really was.
But Margot remembered.
"It's like a penny," she said once, eyes
closed. "No it's not!" the children cried.
"It's like a fire," she said, "in the stove."
"You're lying, you don't remember!" cried the children.
But she remembered and stood quietly apart from all of them and
watched the patterning windows. And once, a month ago, she had
refused to shower in the school shower rooms, had clutched her
hands to her ears and over her head, screaming the water mustn't
touch her head. So after that, dimly, dimly, she sensed it, she was
different and they knew her difference and kept away. There was talk
that her father and mother were taking her back to Earth next year; it
seemed vital to her that they do so, though it would mean the loss of
thousands of dollars to her family. And so, the children hated her for
all these reasons of big and little consequence. They hated her pale snow
face, her waiting silence, her thinness, and her possible future.
"Get away!" The boy gave her another push. "What're you waiting for?"
Then, for the first time, she turned and looked at him. And what she
was waiting for was in her eyes.
"Well, don't wait around here!" cried the boy savagely. "You won't see
nothing!"
Her lips moved.
"Nothing!" he cried. "It was all a joke, wasn't it?" He turned to the
other children. "Nothing's happening today. Is it?"
They all blinked at him and then, understanding, laughed and shook
their heads.
"Nothing, nothing!"
"Oh, but," Margot whispered, her eyes helpless. "But this is the day,
the scientists predict, they say, they know, the sun..."
"All a joke!" said the boy, and seized her roughly. "Hey, everyone, let's
put her in a closet before the teacher comes!"
"No," said Margot, falling back.
They surged about her, caught her up and bore her, protesting, and
then pleading, and then crying, back into a tunnel, a room, a closet, where
they slammed and locked the door. They stood looking at the door and
saw it tremble from her beating and throwing herself against it. They
heard her muffled cries. Then, smiling, the turned and went out and
back down the tunnel, just as the teacher arrived.
"Ready, children?" She glanced at her watch.
"Yes!" said everyone.
"Are we all
here?" "Yes!"
The rain slacked still more. They crowded to the huge door.
The rain stopped. It was as if, in the midst of a film concerning an
avalanche, a tornado, a hurricane, a volcanic eruption, something had,
first, gone wrong with the sound apparatus, thus muffling and finally
cutting off all noise, all of the blasts and repercussions and thunders,
and then, second, ripped the film from the projector and inserted in its
place a beautiful tropical slide which did not move or tremor. The world
ground to a standstill. The silence was so immense and unbelievable that
you felt your ears had been stuffed or you had lost your hearing
altogether. The children put their hands to their ears. They stood apart.
The door slid back and the smell of the silent, waiting world came in to
them.
The sun came out.
It was the color of flaming bronze and it was very large. And the sky
around it was a blazing blue tile color. And the jungle burned with
sunlight as the children, released from their spell, rushed out, yelling
into the springtime.
"Now, don't go too far," called the teacher after them. "You've only two
hours, you know. You wouldn't want to get caught out!"
But they were running and turning their faces up to the sky and feeling
the sun on their cheeks like a warm iron; they were taking off their
jackets and letting the sun burn their arms.
"Oh, it's better than the sun lamps, isn't it?" "Much, much better!"
They stopped running and stood in the great jungle that covered Venus
that grew and never stopped growing, tumultuously, even as you
watched it. It was a nest of octopi, clustering up great arms of flesh like
weed, wavering, flowering in this brief spring. It was the color of rubber
and ash, this jungle, from the many years without sun. It was the color of
stones and white cheeses and ink, and it was the color of the moon.
The children lay out, laughing, on the jungle mattress, and heard it sigh and
squeak under them resilient and alive. They ran among the trees, they
slipped and fell, they pushed each other, they played hide-and-seek and
tag, but most of all they squinted at the sun until the tears ran down
their faces; they put their hands up to that yellowness and that amazing
blueness and they breathed of the fresh, fresh air and listened to the
silence which suspended them in a blessed sea of no sound and no
motion. They looked at everything and savored everything. Then, wildly,
like animals escaped from their caves, they ran and ran in shouting circles.
They ran for an hour and did not stop running.
And then -in the midst of their running one of the girls wailed.
Everyone stopped.
The girl, standing in the open, held out her hand.
"Oh, look, look," she said, trembling.
They came slowly to look at her opened palm.
In the center of it, cupped and huge, was a single raindrop. She
began to cry, looking at it. They glanced quietly at the sun.
"Oh. Oh."
A few cold drops fell on their noses and their cheeks and their mouths.
The sun faded behind a stir of mist. A wind blew cold around them. They
turned and started to walk back toward the underground house, their
hands at their sides, their smiles vanishing away.
A boom of thunder startled them and like leaves before a new hurricane,
they tumbled upon each other and ran. Lightning struck ten miles
away, five miles away, a mile, a half mile. The sky darkened into
midnight in a flash.
They stood in the doorway of the underground for a moment until it was
raining hard. Then they closed the door and heard the gigantic sound of
the rain falling in tons and avalanches, everywhere and forever.
"Will it be seven more
years?" "Yes. Seven."
Then one of them gave a little cry.
"Margot."
"What?"
"She's still in the closet where we locked her."
"Margot."
They stood as if someone had driven them, like so many stakes, into
the floor. They looked at each other and then looked away. They glanced
out at the world that was raining now and raining and raining steadily.
They could not meet each other's glances. Their faces were solemn and
pale. They looked at their hands and feet, their faces down.
"Margot."
One of the girls said,
"Well...?" No one moved.
"Go on," whispered the girl.
They walked slowly down the hall in the sound of cold rain. They turned
through the doorway to the room in the sound of the storm and thunder,
lightning on their faces, blue and terrible. They walked over to the closet
door slowly and stood by it.
Behind the closet door was only silence.
They unlocked the door, even more slowly, and let Margot out.