"Post I: Discourse Surrounding the Essay."

In some ways the essay can deal in both events and ideas better than the short stories can, because the essayist – unlike the poet – may introduce the plain, unadorned thought without the contrived entrances of longwinded characters who mouth discourses. This sort of awful device killed “the novel of idea”. (But eschewing it served to limit fiction’s materials a little further, and likely contributed to our being left with the short story of scant idea.) The essayist may reason; he may treat of historical, cultural, or natural events, as well as personal events, for their interest the essay’s materials are larger than the story’s.
-Annie Dillard in “Essays Versus Stories”
In Annie Dillard’s quote about “Essays versus Stories” she has compared two different ideas that I never would have thought could really go together, I had always thought they contrasted each other. In her first sentence of the quote she says, in so many words, that a writer of an essay can find the true “story” and leave out all the nonsense mumble jumble that is not needed to get the point across. It is still a story but it is not a great novel that is 600 pages long. I would, in my own words after reading this quote, would have to say that an essay is a snap shot of a story. You get what you see. There is no long drawn out explanation of where the picture was taken and why the objects in the picture are there. It’s straight down to the point.
I don’t like the idea about the “killing the novel”. The idea of an essay can never “kill” a novel. If it were up to me I would probably want to read a novel before I even touched an essay. The word “essay” just seems like it would be a boring short non-descriptive story. Although word “novel” does not actually spring great words and hopes into my head, but it does bring a sense of travel and imagination with it. I don’t think that I could ever be engrossed in an essay but I do know that I can be engrossed in a novel. There are times though that I don’t want the whole story of the picture, there are times that I do just want the “snap shoot” and no explanation.
So all and all I believe that both an essay and a story both bring something different to the table. An essay brings a tad-bit of information and a story gives you the entire idea, millions of details and all. Consequently at the end of the day I have to agree with Annie Dillard, but at the same time add a few ideas of my own.