Multiple Themes in “The Semplica-Girl Diaries”

In his famous review of Hawthorne’s Twice-told Tales, Edgar Allan Poe classifies the short story based on its “unity of effect and impression.” Building on this idea, literary critic Brander Matthews (1901) adds that this “essential unity of impression” “shows one action, in one place, on one day. A Short-story deals with a single character, a single event, a single emotion, or the series of emotions called forth by a single situation.” Considering your observations of any one of the texts that we’ve read so far, how can we add to, challenge, and revise Poe’s and Matthews’ dicta? What other generic characteristics define the short story form? Try to contrast the form with other familiar literary genres, such as novels and poetry. Focus your analysis on a single formal trait (with concrete, directly quoted examples) from one text.

Based on this definition of a “short” story (provided above by the blog prompt) we can classify “The Semplica-Girl Diaries” as a short story. It is a clear and concisely written story with only a few pages. Within those pages, we are told the story of the narrator, his wife Pam, and their two daughters. A key feature of the story are the Semplica-Girls, nicknamed SGs. Through the narration, we learn that they’re young girls from poor families from poor countries that are forced to sign contracts to essentially be lawn gnomes.

I think in general “The Semplica-Girl Diaries” fits most of the classifications for being a short story. Throughout the story, we are mostly told the story of one family and their struggles, particularly financial. The writing style is also consistent throughout the story. It’s told in a stream of consciousness style. There are rambling sentences that go off-topic. In that way, it follows a diary or log. I think that although “The Semplica-Girl Diaries” is a short story it doesn’t cover just one theme.

To me “The Semplica-Girl Diaries” covers two different themes, one about exploitation (specifically the exploitation of young women) and the other about poverty. It’s clear from the beginning of the story that the narrator is very poor and in a tough financial situation. He can’t pay for a birthday gift for his daughter. He also has to carefully calculate his money and debts. Then the other theme is about the SGs. They’re described as girls from bad situations in poor countries. “Moldovan (Gwen) has cousin who thought she was becoming window-washer in Germany, but no: sex slave in Kuwait (!” They are forced through their circumstances to sign contracts that essentially make them slaves. “Gwen” in the example above was scared of falling into a similar fate like her cousin forcing her to be an SG.

I think these two themes don’t fit very well together and are separate. When I was reading “The Semplica-Girl Diaries” it felt very jarring to read about this family's struggles and then the struggles of the SGs. I still think that there is a bit of a jarring difference between these two sections, especially because the readers (or maybe just me) aren’t fully aware of what SGs were. Like the reading isn’t super explicit at the beginning that there are girls hanging from their heads as lawn decoration. With a full-length novel I feel like these two themes could be better fleshed out than in a short story.

I choose this prompt because I think that short stories can discuss multiple themes which is something I think that “The Semplica-Girl Diaries” tries to do this (although to me it feels clunky). Most of the other readings in class try to focus on one main subject. Like “The Things They Carried” is about the attitudes/struggles of soldiers at war. So I thought “The Semplica-Girl Diaries” was a very interesting way of expanding this definition of “short story”.