Notes adopted from Literature: An
Introduction to Fiction, Poetry, and Drama and A
Short Guide to Writing About Literature
Fiction: A name for
stories not entirely factual, but at least partially shaped, made up, or imagined.
Stories can be based on factual material (I.e., the historical novel) but the
factual information is of secondary importance. Ex: Gone with the Wind.
Types of Fiction:
Fable: A brief story that sets forth some pointed statement
of truth. Most fables involve animals endowed with human traits of character
and consciousness but do at times involve astronomical bodies and natural
physical forces with character traits as in “The North Wind and the Sun.” A
fable customarily ends by explicitly stating its
moral.
Ex: “The North Wind and the Sun” (5-6)
Parable: A brief narrative that teaches a moral, but unlike a
fable, its plot is plausibly realistic, and the main characters are human. The
morals of parables are also implied instead of explicitly stated.
Ex: “The
Parable of the Good Samaritan”
Tale: A story, usually short, that sets forth strange and
wonderful events in more or less bare summary, without detailed character
drawing. Two variations of tales are fairy tales (“Snow White and the Seven
Dwarfs”) or tall tales (“Paul Bunyan and Babe the Blue Ox”).
Ex: “Godfather Death” (8-10)
Short Story: A prose narrative too brief to be published in a
separate
volume--as novellas and novels frequently are. The short
story is usually a focused narrative that presents one or two main characters
involved in a single compelling action.
Ex: “A&P” (14-9)
Novella: In modern terms, a prose narrative longer than a short
story but shorter than a novel (approximately 30,000 to 50,000 words). A
novella is long enough to be published independently as a brief book.
Ex: Joseph Conrad’s Heart of Darkness; Susanna
Rowson’s Charlotte Temple
Novel: An extended work of fictional prose narrative. Because
of its extended length, a novel usually has more characters, more varied
scenes, and a broader coverage of time than a short story.
Ex: The Great Gatsby
Elements of Fiction:
Plot: The particular arrangement of actions, events, and
situations that unfold in a narrative. A plot is not merely the general story
in a narrative but the author’s artistic pattern made from the parts of
narrative including the exposition, rising and falling actions, climax, and
denouement.
One way to look at the organization of the
happenings in many works of fiction is to see the plot as a pyramid or
triangle.
Freytag’s Pyramind:
3. Climax
2.
Rising Action 4. Falling
Action
1. Exposition 5.
Denouement
1. Exposition: The opening portion that sets
the scene (if any), introduces the main characters, tells us what happened
before the story opened, and provides any background information we need in
order to understand and care about the events that follow. Usually introduced
to protagonist (Central character who usually initiates the main action
of the story) and antagonist (a character or foe that opposes the
antagonist)
2. Rising Action: The early happenings, with
their increasing tension. Often characterized by suspense (enjoyable
anxiety created in the reader by the author’s handling of plot) and foreshadowing
(suggestions of what is to come later in the story).
3. Climax: The rising action culminates in a
moment of high tension or crisis--signals a turning point in narrative. (the word climax comes from the Greek word meaning
“ladder”)
4. Falling Action: What follows the climax or
decisive moment and leads to the conclusion or denouement.
5. Denouement: A conclusion or resolution
that the reader takes to be final.
Point of View: Refers to the speaker, narrator, persona,
or voice created by authors to tell stories, present arguments, and express attitudes
and judgments.
Types of points of view:
Participating First Person Narrator (I, me, my, and [sometimes]
we, our, and us)
A. A
major character—may be
protagonist as is Huck in Huck Finn
B. A
minor character—may be an
observer, watching a story unfold that involves someone else
Nonparticipating Third Person Narrator (she, he, it, they)
A. All-knowing
or total omniscient—the
narrator sees into the minds of all or some characters, moving when necessary
from one to another.
B. Editorial
omniscient—the narrator knows the
feelings of the characters, but adds an occasional comment or opinion about the
characters. Ex: “Godfather Death”
C. Impartial omniscient—Narrator present s the thoughts and actions of the characters,
but does not judge them or comment on them.
D. Limited or
selective omniscient—the narrator
sees through the eyes of a single character—who may be either a major or minor
character.
Other
characterizations of narrators:
A. Innocent
narrator or naïve narrator—usually a
character who fails to understand all the implications of the story. Ex:
Huck Finn—Huck accepts without question the morality and lawfulness of
slavery; he feels guilty for helping Jim, a runaway slave. But far from condemning Huck for his defiance
of the law—“All right, then, I’ll go to Hell,” Huck tells himself, deciding
against returning Jim to captivity—the author, and the reader, silently
applaud.
B. Unreliable
narrator—the point of view is from a person who, we perceive, is deceptive, self-deceptive,
deluded, or deranged.
Character: The verbal representation of a human being—through
action, speech, description, and commentary, authors portray characters who are
worth caring about, rooting for, and even loving, although there are also
characters you may laugh at, dislike, or even hate.
A.
Types of
characters:
1.
Round characters—authors present enough detail about them to render them, full,
lifelike, and memorable. They are
dynamic meaning they recognize, change with, or adjust to circumstances. Types of round characters:
1. Hero or
heroine
2.
Protagonist (the “first actor”)—central to the action and moves
against the antagonist.
3.
Antagonist (the “opposing actor”)—a character or force that
opposes the protagonist.
2.
Flat characters—characters that do not grow but remain the same because they are stupid
or insensitive or because
they lack the knowledge or insight. They end where they begin and thus are
static, not dynamic. Types of flat
characters:
1.
Stock
characters—flat
characters in standard roles with standard traits. They are representative of their class or
group. They stay flat as long as they do
no more than perform their roles and exhibit conventional and unindividual traits.
When they possess no attitudes except those of their class, they are
called stereotype characters because they all seem to have been cast in the
same mold.
C. Versimilitude, Probablity, and
Reality: Characters in fiction should be
true to life. Therefore, their actions,
statements, and thoughts must all be what human beings are likely to do, say,
and think under the questions presented in the literary work.
Setting: Setting is a work’s natural, manufactured,
political, cultural, and temporal environment, including everything that
characters know and own.
A.
Three
Basic Types of Setting:
a.
Nature
and the Outdoors
b.
Objects
of Manufacture and Construction (Ex:
Houses, both interiors and exteriors, park benches, necklaces
c.
Cultural
conditions and assumptions (Ex: The
cultural setting of an isolated island off the coast of
B.
The
Importance of Setting to a Narrative
a.
A
credible setting establishes literary credibility. One of the major purposes of literary setting
is to establish realism or verisimilitude.
b.
Setting
may be a strong guide to character
c.
Authors
may use setting as an organizing element.
i.
An
author may use setting to organize the work geographically.
1.
Ex: The protagonist may move from an expensive
condo in downtown
ii.
Another
organizational application of place, time, and object is the framing or enclosing setting, whereby a work begins and ends with descriptions
of the same scene, thus forming a frame or an enclosure. (Ex: O Brother, Where Art Thou?)
d.
Setting
may serve as literary symbols.
e.
Setting
may be used to establish a work’s atmosphere.
i.
Setting
helps to create an atmosphere or mood, which refers to an enveloping or
permeating emotional texture within a work.
1.
Ex: Descriptions of bright colors (red, orange,
yellow) may contribute to a mood of happiness.
The contrast of such bright colors with darkness and dark colors may
invoke gloom or augment hysteria.
Tone:
Similar to tone in poetry,
tone in fiction is the author’s attitude toward the subject being
discussed. The author’s choice of
diction (choice of words), details, characters, events, and situations lead us
to infer his or her attitude.
A.
Irony: When an author says one thing but means quite
the opposite.
a.
Verbal
Irony: Most familiar form of irony—we
understand the speaker’s meaning to be far from the usual meaning of the
words. Ex: “Oh, sure, I just love to have four papers
fall due on the same day.” Often verbal
irony is in the form of sarcasm—sour statements tinged with mockery.
b.
Irony of Fate or
Cosmic Irony: Suggestion that some
malicious fate (or other spirit in the universe) is deliberately frustrating
human efforts.
Theme:
Like other forms of
literature, theme in fiction simply refers to whatever general idea or insight
the entire story reveals.
A.
The following
questions can help you determine theme(s) in a narrative and organize those
themes into statements:
a.
Look back at the
title of the story. From what you’ve
read, what does it indicate?
b.
Does the main
character in any way change in the story?
Does this character arrive at any eventual realization or
understanding? Are you left with any
realization or understanding you did not have before?
c.
Does the author
make any general observations about life or human nature? Do the characters make any? (Caution: Characters now and again will utter opinions
with which the reader is not necessarily supposed to agree.)
d.
Does the story
contain any especially curious objects, any flat characters, significant
animals, repeated names, song titles, or whatever that hint toward larger
meanings than such things usually have?
In literary stories, such symbols may point to central themes.
e.
When you have
worded your statement of theme, have you cast into general language, not just
given a plot summary?
f.
Does your
statement hold true for the story as a whole?
Symbol:
In literature, a person,
place or thing that suggests meanings beyond its literal sense. Symbols usually contain multiple meanings and
associations.
A.
Ex:
a.
In Herman
Melville’s Moby-Dick, the great white
whale is more than a literal dictionary-definition meaning of an aquatic
mammal. The great white whale, as the
story unfolds, comes to imply an amplitude of
meanings: among them the forces of
nature and the whole created universe.
b.
Also in “A Rose
for Emily,” Miss Emily’s invisible watch ticking at the end of a golden chain
not only indicates the passage of time, but suggests that time passes without
even being noticed by the watch’s owner, and the golden chain carries
suggestions of wealth and authority.
B.
Symbolic
Act: A gesture with larger significance
than usual.
a.
Ex: For the boy’s father in “Barn Burning,” the
act of destroying a barn is no mere act of spite, but an expression of his
profound hatred for anything not belonging to him.