The basic element of the short story

The basic elements of the short story include
setting (time and place),
conflict,
character,
and theme.
Most stories are set in present day, but settings of place vary from rural to urban and exotic to mundane. The reader follows the main character (or protagonist) in a conflict with another character (or antagonist) or in an internal conflict with some antagonistic psychological or spiritual force.
Characters range from familiar stereotypes, such as the aggressive businessman and the lonely housewife, to archetypal characters, such as the rebel, the scapegoat, the alter ego, and those engaged in some sort of search.
The subject of a short story is often mistaken for its theme.
Common subjects for modern short fiction include race, ethnic status, gender, class, and social issues such as poverty, drugs, violence, and divorce. These subjects allow the writer to comment upon the larger theme that is the heart of the fictional work.
Some of the major themes of 20th-century short stories, as well as longer forms of fiction, are human isolation, alienation, and personal trauma, such as anxiety; love and hate; male-female relationships; family and the conflict of generations; initiation from innocence to experience; friendship and brotherhood; illusion and reality; self-delusion and self-discovery; the individual in conflict with society’s institutions;
mortality; spiritual struggles; and even the relationship between life and art.