Granite By Adalbert Stifter

There has always existed a clear line of division between history and memory. The former is the recorded composite of all significant or trivial events and facts of the past, whereas the latter is the inheritance of personal, subjective emotional recollection of past events. A short story depicting a childhood anecdote of a little boy, Granite by Adalbert Stifter highlights the significant of the latter over the former through its bipolar symbolisms of its two layers; the outer story of Granite symbolizes recorded history, whereas the inner story is a symbol of the inheritance of emotional memory. Through the analysis of the contrast between and the symbolisms within the outer story and inner story in Granite, this essay argues that the short
The entire inner story, in contrast to the realistic narration of the outer story, is narrated in a fairy-tale like manner. Its lack of clear time frame is, in particular, characteristic of fairy tales and folklore. To illustrate, Stifter employs phrases like “there was once”, “winter evenings” and “when the bushes of the forest had got their blossoms” in opposition to exact time measurement. This lack of precision in time draw a compelling link between this inner story and fairy tales (Stifter 16,17). In addition, there exists in the inner story also a lack of clear, coherent link between each sentence that is representative of fairy tales: “children didn’t love their parents any more, nor parents their children, they merely threw the dead into the pit and went away. The red cherries ripened, but no one thought about them, and no one took them from the trees”(Stifter 17). Even though the primary ideas conveyed in each sentence appear relevant, no conjunctions that establish logical relations, such as “also”, “in addition”, exist between sentences. The consequent vagueness resembles that of fairy tale