The ideas raised in “Introduction: The Art of the Short Story” can be applied to the short stories “Story of an Hour” by Kate Chopin and “The Haunted House” by Virginia Woolf because they both followed the three things make it a short story. First, in both stories the actions were condensed, secondly the characters of both stories were compressed into exploring one action, and lastly both use poetic prose. In “Story of an Hour” when Louise hears that her husband has died she cries tears of joy and says “Free! Body and soul free!” meaning she’s now free of him and didn’t have to be held back by anyone anymore. When her husband Brently walks through the door at the end of the story she is shocked only because she was so overwhelmed with his death and being able to live her life and seeing him alive takes away all that. In “The Haunted House” the author Virginia Woolf shows it’s a short story by poetic prose meaning her use of image allows us to see what she is saying without having a picture in front of us. In the short story it says, “The wind falls, the rain slides silver down the grass. Our eyes darken; no hear no steps beside us; we see no lady spread her ghostly cloak”. While reading this part in the story you can imagine it all happening. You can see the three main points of short stories brought up in the stories by Kate Chopin and Virginia
