SOURCE: Fletcher, John. “Joyce, Beckett, and the Short Story in Ireland.” In Re: Joyce 'n Beckett, edited by Phyllis Carey and Ed Jewinski, pp. 3-20. New York: Fordham University Press, 1992.

In the following essay, Fletcher finds similarities between Beckett's “Fingal” and James Joyce's “Ivy Day in the Committee Room.”

In freshman classes, I tend to define the short story as a short prose narrative of concentrated effect, complete within its own terms, showing a firm story-line and often an abrupt ending, limited in its temporal and spatial location and in the number of characters deployed, and tending to work through understatement and humor rather than explicit comment.

Joyce's Dubliners is one of the greatest short-story collections ever published. Beckett's More Pricks Than Kicks, an early book—one he refused for many years to allow to be reissued—is far from being in the same league. Still, they are...