THE MAN WITH HIS BACK TURNED TRANSCIPT

Good day, learners. Welcome to yet again another literary discussion. For today, we will have the story
entitled “The Man with His Back Turned” by Agustin Cadena.
Let’s start with a review first. So we have here text and the author. For the text, the title is “The Man with
His Back Turned”. The summary would be Daniela brought a 12 inches long but 8 inches wide, Gothic,
rose-colored mirror one Saturday; The same day in the afternoon, Daniela and her family were mystified
for there is a man with his back turned inside it. They concluded that the mad lives in the mirror but they
did not want to know more. All they wanted was to get rid of him. Dani returned the mirror to the flea
market and as she was already walking away from the booth, she heard the man murmuring, “back
again”.
That is how the story ended.
Moving forward, we have to subjects for our story, we have mystery and deception. Mystery as we
define it is something that is difficult or impossible to understand or explain. I think it’s quite evident or
clear that our story today revolves around this subject. It’s very mysterious. It left us asking, “what
happened in the story?”, “why is it quite hard for us to understand or explain it?”. Next we have,
deception. It is the act or statement which misleads, hides the truth, or promotes belief, concept, or idea
that is not true. In our story, the main character or our main character Daniela, experienced this.

Now let’s go to our author. We have here Agustin Cadena. He was born in Hidalgo, Mexico.
He taught at UNAM; at Austin College, Texas; and currently teachers at the University of Debrecen,
Hungary.
He is an essayist, fiction writer, poet, and translator. Cadena won national prizes, including those for short
fiction in 2004 and 2005 and has published twently-four books, among them collections of short fiction,
essays, and poetry, three novels, and two young adult novels, and most recently, Operacion Snake in
2013. “The Man with his back Turned” is a translation of the story “El hombre de espaldas” which was
originally published online. This is its first English translation.

I think it’s a surprise that the story we have today is shorter compared to that of the stories we previously
discussed. That is because, The Man with His Back Turned is a very good example of a flash fiction.

WHAT IS FLASH FICTION?

Flash Fiction goes by many names including microfiction, microstories, short-stories, short short stories,
sudden fiction, postcard fiction, and nanofiction. Or, as most writers would say, it is the story of a
moment.
It can be difficult to pinpoint an exact definition of flash fiction based on word count. However, we have
some standards for this.
Consideration of its several features can help provide clarity about this compressed form of short story.
A flash fiction piece is a self-contained story with a beginning, middle, and end; 1000 words or less can
entertain, intrigue, and satisfy a reader. In some books, they would say that flash fiction should only be
750 words below or some would say 200 words below.

We have here some misconceptions about flash fiction. It is NOT a part of a bigger story, a synopsis of
a novel, or a short story trimmed down to fit to the 1000-word maximum.
Flash Fiction DOES NOT cause brain-strain with convoluted point-of-views and time and shifts.
Flash Fiction DOES NOT require a reader to go back and read the story again to understand it.

To further understand Flash Fiction, we have here its elements: (1) realistic characters and setting, (2)
solid plot or structure, and (3) gripping conflict or tension.

Flash fiction has realistic characters and setting.

The characters and setting should show uniqueness and skip the boring descriptions, letting the readers
imagine it. The numbers of characters and setting must be low and most flash fiction stories only have
one setting; sticking one character to one point-of-view.
In the story we have today, The Man with His Back Turned, we only have very few characters like
Daniela, her mother, and her grandmother. We also have two settings like their house and the flea market.
Next we have,

Solid plot or structure. The story should establish a recognizable beginning, middle, and end. The story
may begin in the middle of something. It must also start with a gripping hook to pull the audience. The
conflict and the characters must develop in the middle and there should be a resolution and plot twist may
also be included. In the story, it started with Daniela stopping by the flea market and buying the gothic
mirror and then it went on to her realizing that there is a man inside it and it ended with her giving back
the mirror to the flea market.

Lastly, flash fiction has gripping conflict or tension. The conflict can be internal or external and not all
conflicts have to be resolved in the traditional sense. Generally, when we talk about literature, we have
the different types of conflicts and different ways to resolve them. However, when we talk about flash
fiction, the conflicts do not have to be resolved in the traditional sense just like in the story we have
today. The story ended in a cliff-hanger because it wasn’t really clear what happened to the mirror or to
the man inside it or to Daniela after that.
That ends our discussion on flash fiction. Today, we talked about two things: The Man with His Back
Turned and Flash Fiction.
If you have any questions with the discussed topics today, please do not hesitate to ask your teacher.
To end this discussion, I guess we can all agree that life and literature can be likened in a lot of ways and
just like what we talked about today,

Life is short. So I hope you write yours well.