When reading a story, the beginning fiction readers often consider
the entertainment with which the story can provide them and they close
the book with the feeling that "Well, it was a nice story". They usually
are concerned with what happens and as far as the story presents them
with a set of events that they can follow and with which they can
identify, they are content, especially if the story is an adventure one.
That is why, the students of fiction courses, when encountered
with stories which are plain and lack their desirable excitement, they get
puzzled and wonder if the story has any specific meaning at all. This
frightens them as to what the subject matter is and as on what they are
going to be tested. Students are usually after some kind of formula
according to which they could organize the materials and could "give
back" the teachers what they demand.
The Best Science Fiction Stories: 1952
The Best Science Fiction Stories: 1950
Great Science Fiction Stories About the MoonThey wish they could even guess
the kind of exam questions. This may be easily achieved in other
courses, but not in fiction courses. They may soon see what the study of
fiction is not: it is not a "survey" course; it is not like literary history in
which they could learn about different literary schools of thought, their
founders and their disciples. This apprehension increases especially
when the teachers do not teach fiction systematically and only take some
stories to class to be discussed for some general comments. In such
cases, students usually try to draw some moral lessons from the stories
saying "the story shows us that we must not be jealous or greedy" and so
forth. The result is that students rarely go beyond arid moral statements
which indeed arise from their own presuppositions and that they always
read for entertainment rather than...