elements of short story - walailak university
TRANSCRIPT
Elements of Short Story
Plot
0 A plot is a causal sequence or arrangement of events that make up a story.
Plot
0 A plot's structure is the way in which the story elements are arranged.
Plot
0 Many fictional plots turn on a conflict, or struggle between opposing forces, that is usually resolved by the end of the story.
Plot 0 Typical fictional plots begin with an exposition,
0 that provides background information needed to make sense of the action, describes the setting, and introduces the major characters.
Plot 0 These plots develop a series of complications
0 or intensifications of the conflict that lead to a crisis or moment of great tension.
Plot 0 The conflict may reach a climax or turning point,
0 a moment of greatest tension that fixes the outcome.
Plot 0 Then, the resolution or dénouement
0 the action falls off as the plot’s complications are sorted out and resolved.
Plot
Characters 0 Character is a person or
thing involved in the story’s action.
Characters 0 Characters in fiction can be conveniently
classified as 0 major and minor, 0 static and dynamic.
Characters 0 A major character is an important figure at the center
of the story’s action or theme. 0 The major character is sometimes called a
protagonist 0 whose conflict with an antagonist may spark the
story’s conflict.
Characters 0 Major characters or protagonists
Cinderella Snow White
Characters 0 Antagonists
Lady Tremaine
Queen Grimhilde or the Evil Queen
Characters 0 Supporting the major character are one or more
secondary or minor characters whose function is partly to illuminate the major characters.
Characters 0 Minor characters
Mice
Prince Charming
Characters 0 Minor characters
Prince
Seven Dwarfs
Characters 0 Minor characters are often static or unchanging: 0 they remain the same from the beginning of a work
to the end.
Characters 0 Static characters:
Sherlock Holmes and Dr. John Watson
Characters 0 Dynamic characters, on the other hand, exhibit some
kind of change – of attitude, purpose, behavior, as the story progresses.
Characters 0 Dynamic characters Ebenezer Scrooge from Charles Dickens’s A Christmas Carol
Characters 0 Types of Characters 1. Protagonist (hero): the central figure with whom we usually sympathize or identify 2. Antagonist (villain): the figure who opposes the protagonist and creates the conflict 3. Foil Character: the figure whose personality traits are the opposite of the main character’s. This is a supporting character and usually made to shine the protagonist.
Characters Characterization 0 Characterization is the information the author gives the
reader about the characters themselves. 0 The author may reveal a character in several ways:
0 his/her physical appearance 0 what he/she says, thinks, feels and dreams 0 what he/she does or does not do 0 what others say about him/her and how others react to
him/her
Characters Characterization 0 a means by which writers present and reveal characters
0 by direct description, by showing the character in action. 0 by presentation of other characters who help to define
each other.
Characters 0 Direct Characterization From J.K. Rowling’s Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone Mr. Dursley was the director of a firm called Grunnings, which made drills. He was a big, beefy man with hardly any neck, although he did have a very large mustache. Mrs. Dursley was thin and blonde and had nearly twice the usual amount of neck, which came in very useful as she spent so much of her time craning over garden fences, spying on the neighbors. The Dursleys had a small son called Dudley and in their opinion there was no finer boy anywhere.
Characters 0 Indirect Characterization From Harper Lee’s To Kill a Mockingbird . . . It was times like these when I [Scout Finch] thought my father [Atticus Finch], who hated guns and had never been to any wars, was the bravest man who ever lived. . .
Characters The Ways Characters Are Portrayed 1. Flat Characters (stock, static characters or stereotypes)
0 they have no depth and no change; 0 we only see one side or aspect of them. 0 Most supporting characters are portrayed in this way, 0 for example, a strict teacher, a helpful policeman, and an evil
stepmother.
Characters The Ways Characters Are Portrayed 2. Round Characters (dynamic character):
0 they have more fully developed personalities. 0 We expect the protagonists and antagonists to be rounded
individuals who express a range of emotion and change throughout the narrative, usually toward greater maturity.
Characters
Setting 0 Setting is the physical and
social context in which the action of a story occurs.
0 The major elements of setting
are the time, the place, and the social environment that frames the characters.
Setting 0 These elements establish
the world in which the characters act.
0 Setting can be used to evoke a mood or atmosphere that will prepare the reader for what is to come.
Setting 0 Some or all of these aspects of setting should be
considered when examining a story: • Place - geographical location. Where is the action of the story? • Time - When is the story taking place? (historical period, time of day, year, etc.) • Weather conditions - Is it rainy, sunny, stormy, etc.? •Social conditions - What is the daily life of the characters? •Mood or atmosphere - What feeling is created?
Setting 0 Types of setting
0 Integral Setting 0 Backdrop Setting
Point of view 0 Point of view refers to who tells the story and how it
is told. 0 Someone is always between the reader and the action
of the story. 0 That someone is telling the story from his or her own point of view.
Point of view 0 First-Person Narrator (uses pronoun I):
0 The narrator presents the point of view of only one character’s consciousness, which limits the narrative to what the first-person narrator knows, experiences, infers, or can find out by talking to other characters.
Point of view First-Person Narrator
From Ernest Hemingway’s The Sun Also Rises The narrator, or ‘I’ in the excerpt, is the protagonist Jake Barnes.
Point of view
0 Second-person point of view is the least commonly used point of view in literary writings.
0 In this point of view, the narrator uses the pronoun “you” to refer to one of the character in the story and to address the reader or listener directly.
Point of view 0 Second-person point of view
From Italo Calvino’s If on a winter’s night a traveler
Point of view
0 Third-Person Narrator (Omniscient) The narrator is all-knowing and takes the reader inside the characters’ thoughts, feelings, and motives, as well as shows what the characters say and do.
Point of view
0 Third-Person Narrator (Limited omniscient) The narrator takes the reader inside one (or at most very few characters) but neither the reader nor the character(s) has access to the inner lives of any of the other characters in the story.
Point of view
0 Third-Person Narrator (Objective) The narrator does not see into the mind of any character; rather he or she reports the action and dialogue without telling the reader directly what the characters feel and think.
Point of view Third-Person Narrator When Jane and Elizabeth were alone, the former, who had been cautious in her praise of Mr. Bingley before, expressed to her sister how very much she admired him. “He is just what a young man ought to be,” said she, “sensible, good humoured, lively; and I never saw such happy manners! -- so much ease, with such perfect good breeding!” From Jane Austen’s Pride and Prejudice, Chapter 4
Theme 0 Theme is the central idea or meaning of a story. 0 Theme in fiction is rarely presented at all. 0 It is abstracted from the details of character and action
that compose the story. 0 It provides a unifying point around which the plot,
characters, setting, point of view, symbols, and other elements of a story are organized.
0 Be careful to distinguish theme from plot.
Theme
Theme . . . In the end the Party would announce that two and two made five, and you would have to believe it. It was inevitable that they should make that claim sooner or later: the logic of their position demanded it. Not merely the validity of experience, but the very existence of external reality was tacitly denied by their philosophy. . . From George Orwell’s 1984
Theme
From George Orwell’s 1984
Theme 0 George Orwell’s novel 1984 contains multiple
references to power and manipulation. 0 This theme example presents the concept of “2+2=5”
to show that the Party in power will try to make citizens believe even things that are obviously wrong.
Theme “Do not pity the dead, Harry. Pity the living, and, above all those who live without love. . . .” (From J.K. Rowling’s Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows)
Theme 0 J. K. Rowling’s Harry Potter series contains the major
theme of good versus evil. 0 Even more important than this is the theme of love. 0 Over the course of the series, Harry Potter learns that he
is alive because of his mother’s love, and the sacrifice she made for him.
Theme 0 This love, in J. K. Rowling’s conception, is so powerful that
it resists the ultimate evil. 0 And Lord Voldemort is evil because he is both unable to
feel love and unable to grasp its significance. 0 In this quote from the final novel of the series,
Dumbledore tells Harry that living without love is the greatest hardship of all.
Conflict is the essence of fiction. It creates plot
Conflict
0 Human versus Human: conflict that pits one person against another.
Conflict
0 Human versus Nature: this involves a run-in with the forces of nature.
Conflict
0 Human versus Society: the values and customs by which everyone else’s lives are being challenged.
Conflict
0 Human versus Self: internal conflict
Tone
0 Tone is the author’s implicit attitude toward the reader, subject, and/or the people, places, and events in a work as revealed by the author’s style.
0 Tone may be characterized as serious or ironic, sad or happy, bitter or nostalgic, or any other attitudes and feelings that human beings experience.
Tone
0 Elements of tone include 0 diction, or word choice; 0 syntax, the grammatical arrangement of words in a
text for effect; 0 imagery, or vivid appeals to the senses; 0 details, facts that are included or omitted.
Style
0 Style is the way a writer chooses words (diction), arranges them in sentences and longer units of discourse (syntax) and exploits their significance.
0 Style is the verbal identity of a writer. 0 Writers’ styles convey their unique ways of seeing the
world.
Irony Irony always involves a contrast between one thing and another.
0 Verbal irony: what is said is actually the opposite of what is
meant or intended 0 Dramatic irony: the contrast between what a character
believes or says and what the reader understands to be true 0 Situational irony: the discrepancy between appearance and
reality / the contrast between what is expected to happen and what actually happens
Irony
0 Verbal irony
Irony
Verbal irony 0 Soft like a brick. 0 That dog is as friendly as a rattlesnake. 0 One got in a car accident and said “Lucky me!”
Irony 0 Verbal irony Two households, both alike in dignity, In fair Verona, where we lay our scene, From ancient grudge break to new mutiny, Where civil blood makes civil hands unclean. (From William Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet) 0 When Shakespeare introduces his two antagonistic families in
Romeo and Juliet, he calls them two households that are “alike in dignity.” The reader may think that the two families are both honorable and dignified only to discover later on in the play that the families are violently competitive and undignified.
Irony 0 Dramatic irony
0 Two people are engaged to be married but the audience knows
that the man is planning to run away with another woman.
Irony
0 Dramatic irony
Irony
Situational irony 0 Two people want a divorce and during the
proceedings, discover they still love each other and remarry.
Irony
0 Situational irony
Situational irony 0 In O. Henry’s The Gift of the Magi, the wife cuts her long hair and
sells it to have the money to buy her husband a pocket watch chain. He sells the watch to buy her a hair accessory.
Symbol 0 A symbol is a person, object, image, word, or event that
evokes a range of additional meanings beyond and usually more abstract than its literal significance.
0 Symbols are devices for evoking complex ideas without having to resort explanations.
Symbol 0 Conventional symbols have meanings that are widely
recognized by a society or culture, i.e., the Christian cross, the Star of David, a swastika, a nation’s flag.
0 A literary or contextual symbol can be a setting, a character, action, object, name, or anything else in a specific work that maintains its literal significance while suggesting other meanings.
Symbol
Symbol