Sections vs. Cross Sections——A Contrast of the Short Stories of Hardy and Chekhov

Anton Chekhov,the Russian writer,wrote many outstanding stories. Thomas Hardy,a contemporary English w riter w ith C hekhov,also created many high-quality and ar-tistically valuable short stories. At present,there is broad consensus among researchers and scholars almost around the w orld on the w orth of C hekhov’s w orks,but pitifully,the value of Hardy’s is somew hat neglected. Therefore,this paper is to draw from the angle of short story creation the outline of the differences betw een these tw o great masters’w orks and highlight the value of Hardy’s by making a contrast of the tw o w riters in material selection,theme ex- ploration,characterization,narrative art and contribution to the development of short story.