Short Stories with Literary Elements

What are literary elements?

Literary elements are the basic building blocks that nearly every story contains: who is in it, where and when it happens, what goes wrong, who tells it, and what it all adds up to. They are different from literary devices (such as metaphor or foreshadowing), which are techniques a writer may choose to use. Every story has a setting and some kind of plot; not every story has a flashback or a symbol.

Short stories are an ideal place to study these elements. A short story is compact, so each choice the author makes stands out, and you can usually read a complete example in one sitting.

The main elements of a short story

Teachers and textbooks do not all use the same list, and you will see anywhere from five to eight items depending on the source. A commonly taught set looks like this:

• Plot: the sequence of events, often moving from exposition through rising action and climax to resolution.
• Setting: the time, place, and atmosphere.
• Character: the people (or creatures) in the story and how they change or fail to change.
• Conflict: the struggle that drives the plot, whether between characters, within a character, or against society or nature.
• Point of view: who tells the story and how much they know or reveal.
• Theme: the underlying idea about life or people that the story explores.
• Tone and style: the author’s attitude and the way the language sounds on the page.

Symbolism, irony, and imagery are often added as further elements or devices. Check which list your class or exam uses.

Short stories that show each element at work

The stories below are widely anthologized, and many are in the public domain or easy to find in school collections. The observations are starting points, not the only possible readings.

Plot and structure

• “The Necklace” by Guy de Maupassant (1884): A clear chain of cause and effect: a borrowed necklace is lost, a debt is taken on, years of hardship follow, and a final reveal reframes everything. It is a good model of how a plot can be built around a single reversal.
• “A Rose for Emily” by William Faulkner (1930): The events are told out of chronological order. Reading it shows how rearranging a plot changes what a reader feels and when.

Setting and atmosphere

To practise writing setting yourself, try the scene setting examples.

• “The Fall of the House of Usher” by Edgar Allan Poe (1839): The decaying house is more than a backdrop; it mirrors the family’s condition. See our list of Gothic short stories for more stories where place carries the mood.
• “To Build a Fire” by Jack London (1908): A bitterly cold Yukon landscape drives the entire plot. For related ideas, see nature themes in literature.

Character and conflict

For how characters change over a story, see the list of character arcs.

• “The Story of an Hour” by Kate Chopin (1894): Nearly all the conflict is inside one character, and it unfolds in a very short span of story time.
• “The Most Dangerous Game” by Richard Connell (1924): A straightforward example of person-against-person conflict, with a hunter becoming the hunted.

Point of view

For more on how narrators are positioned, see third person limited and omniscient examples and close third person.

• “The Tell-Tale Heart” by Edgar Allan Poe (1843): A first-person narrator insists he is sane while telling the story in a way that suggests otherwise. It is a standard example of an unreliable narrator.
• “The Yellow Wallpaper” by Charlotte Perkins Gilman (1892): Another first-person account where the reader gradually understands more than the narrator admits.

Theme and symbol

• “The Lottery” by Shirley Jackson (1948): The ordinary village and the black box become symbols of tradition that people follow without questioning it. The theme is often discussed in terms of blind adherence to custom.
• “Araby” by James Joyce (from Dubliners, 1914): A boy’s trip to a bazaar ends in a moment of self-recognition, often called an epiphany. Related ideas appear in our article on identity crisis in literature.

Irony and tone

• “The Gift of the Magi” by O. Henry (1905): A well-known case of situational irony, where what happens is the opposite of what the characters intended.
• “The Landlady” by Roald Dahl: Here the reader senses danger before the character does. See short stories with dramatic irony.

A quick table of stories and elements

How to find literary elements while reading

1. Read once for the story. Do not annotate on the first pass if you can avoid it.
2. Reread with one question per pass. For example: who is telling this, and what do they leave out?
3. Look for repetition. Objects, images, or phrases that come back are often symbols or tied to theme.
4. Ask what changes. A character, a relationship, or the reader’s understanding usually shifts between the start and the end.
5. State the theme as a full sentence. “Death” is a topic; “People may deny what they fear until it is unavoidable” is a theme.

Where to go next in this cluster

• Study how one specific object or place can carry meaning: lilac symbolism in literature and island symbolism in literature.
• Practice turning this kind of analysis into an exam response with our guide to AP Literature essay examples.

Frequently asked questions

What are the 7 main elements of a story?

There is no single official list. A commonly used set is plot, setting, character, conflict, point of view, theme, and tone or style, though some sources substitute symbolism or mood.

What are some examples of a literary element?

Setting is a literary element: in “The Fall of the House of Usher,” the crumbling house is the setting. Conflict is another: in “The Most Dangerous Game,” the conflict is between hunter and hunted.

What are some examples of a narrative story?

A narrative tells a sequence of events. Short stories like “The Necklace” and “The Lottery” are narratives, as are novels, fables, and many personal essays.

What are the top 10 short stories?

Any such list is subjective. The titles in this article appear often in classrooms and anthologies, which makes them a reasonable place to start.