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A commenter on one of my earlier posts asks, “Is there a protagonist in the modern short story?” My unqualified short answer is, “Yes, always.”

Now I’ll qualify it: I can imagine an experimental, literary short story with no protagonist. Perhaps a tale told through multiple viewpoints, none of which dominates, might work. But I think even there, readers would be frustrated by the lack of a primary point of view. In genre fiction, which I prefer, I don’t think a story sans protagonist would work. Maybe Kurt Vonnegut could have pulled it off. I sure couldn’t.