Authors of short stories have to pay attention to structure, atmosphere, social background and language, comment in detail on the way your attention is sustained by 'the Half Brothers' by Elizabeth Gaskell.

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To make the content effective and to sustain the attention of the reader, authors of short stories have to pay attention to structure, atmosphere, social background and language, comment in detail on the way your attention is sustained by ‘the Half Brothers’ by Elizabeth Gaskell.

        During the industrial revolution, short stories became very popular and ‘The Half Brothers’ is an example of a short story. However, it does not always conform to the usual characteristics of a short story. ‘The Half Brothers’ is the story of two half brothers that are alienated from each other after their mother dies. Many years later, the younger brother’s life is saved by his older half brother (Gregory), who dies trying to save his younger brother’s life.

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          Elizabeth Gaskell uses structure a lot to maintain the reader’s attention. ‘The Half Brothers’ has a very long and detailed background that helps the reader to understand and begin to care about the characters and their lives so far, thus sustaining their attention. This is unusual for a short story as it is traditional for short stories to have no background or scene settings.  A further outcome of this detailed background is that Gaskell’s characters are developed. This is important in prolonging the reader’s attention as otherwise the reader would not be interested in the ...

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