FICTION: FROM ANALYSIS TO COMPOSITION AP English 4
LITERARY ELEMENTS IN FICTION Elements of fiction work together to produce meaning: Plot Point of View Character Symbol Setting Theme
PLOT: FROM WHAT TO WHY Authors arrange conflicts, complications, and resolutions within a narrative to help readers understand what is happening and why. Conventional plot structure was originally used to describe Greek and Shakespearean plays.
CONVENTIONAL NARRATIVE STRUCTURE The conflict and complications build for the main character. Plot suspense or emotional tension peaks. Protagonist s fortunes improve (comedy) or worsen (tragedy). climax Result of the climax where the conflict gets resolved turning point exposition denoument inciting incident Background info: characters, setting, situation, nature of conflict. resolution Conflict has been resolved, and balance is restored. Traditionally used to tell the moral of the story.
MODERN NARRATIVE STRUCTURE Frequently deviates from conventional or chronological structure. In Medias Res when a story begins in the middle of the action Foreshadowing hint at things going to happen Flashbacks describe events that have already occurred. No denouement included Questions to ask yourself: Is the plot arranged in chronological order? If the author deviates, what is the purpose of this/these technique(s)? Increasing suspense? Leaving the ending open to interpretation? Creating mood?
CHARACTERS AND MEANING Writers use characters to move along narrative and meaning, how they describe them depends on the author s style and intentions. They may use direct or indirect characterization. Round or dynamic characters change throughout the story and exhibit a range of characteristics and emotions. May be gradual change or experience an epiphany. Flat or static characters generally minor characters with one or two traits. Common types: foils, or stock characters. In plays, characters are often revealed through dialogue.
CHARACTERS: QUESTIONS TO ASK How do the characters change? What is their function? Do they see themselves differently from how the readers see them? How do other characters see them and do their perspectives change? Are their perspectives correct? What is the author s intent? Is there dramatic irony?
WRITING PRACTICE Nineteenth-century English novelist Charles Dickens opens his novel Hard Times with a description of the central character, Mr. Gradgrind. Even before his rather appropriate name is revealed, Dickens makes sure the reader understands what Mr. Gradgrind is like. Discuss the direct and indirect methods used to characterize him in the following passage.
HARD TIMES EXCERPT In the first paragraph, Dickens narrator reveals his central character directly by what he says. Gradgrind s tone is confident, authoritative, perhaps obstinate and arrogant. He is clearly a man who knows best ; in fact, he knows the only way to form young minds. Dickens provides direct description in paragraph two. The square wall of a forehead and two dark caves for his eyes both suggest a Neanderthal-like being. Moreover, the description of Gradgrind s hair presents him as quite ridiculous looking, as an object of ridicule. Another method at work here is carefully chosen diction. Monotonous, inflexible, dictatorial, obstinate, unaccommodating, and stubborn all directly contribute to the characterization; they all helped the emphasis, in the words of the narrator.
HARD TIMES EXCERPT (CONT.) The second paragraph includes rich imagery that indirectly characterizes Gradgrind. The plain, bare, monotonous vault of (the) school-room echoes the unimaginative and monotonous vault of his mind. The repetition of emphasis it occurs five times in as many sentences certainly emphasizes the importance of the imagery. The author also repeats square, hardly a flattering adjective. Dickens continues to characterize Gradgrind indirectly at the end of the excerpt, where the inclined plane of little vessels shows the pupils as Gradgrind views them both literally and figuratively, and a careful reader can hardly miss the humorous irony of the imperial gallons of facts this imperious figure would like to pour.
SETTING Pay attention to the details the sights and sounds, textures and tones, colors and shapes. In a play setting is different than in a novel or short story because there is a physical set to consider. In modern plays we usually find explicit information about the setting (unlike Shakespeare).
SETTING: HISTORICAL CONTEXT A novel, short story, or play may be set in a historical era a time and place that has its own political, economic, or social upheavals. Some cases the historical context goes unstated In other cases it is not implicit but explicit with dates and places clearly identified
SETTING QUESTIONS TO ASK Pay attention to the details sights, sounds, textures, tones, colors, shapes. What does the author include and omit and why? Why is the setting important? Is there an historical context? Is it explicit or implicit? Does it establish the cultural environment? The manners, customs, morals, rituals, and codes of conduct. Is it realistic or invented (such as dystopian or utopian)? Does the setting help create atmosphere or mood, or relate to themes?
WRITING PRACTICE Read the excerpt from Steinbeck s Grapes of Wrath. Then in a well-developed paragraph discuss what the setting reveals about the novel.
GRAPES OF WRATH EXCERPT We get a good sense of the physical setting. The first paragraph, one long sentence that rambles along like the road itself, describes Highway 66 it goes from Mississippi to Bakersfield, California and sets a mood with the sensory images of the long concrete path. In the second paragraph, the narrator introduces the people who follow this road in the hope of finding something better than the desolation of the drought that has worsened their economic hardship. The word flight appears three times, so we get a clear sense of movement from one thing to another, though what that thing is, we re not sure. The third paragraph consist almost entirely of names and places along Highway 66. Even if we do not know these towns, we still get a clear sense of movement, of going from one stop to the next.
GRAPES OF WRATH (CONT.) What is unstated is the reason for the migration, though it is implied when the narrator describes the migrating families as refugees from dust and shrinking land. This passage refers to the great migration of families to California as a result of the Dust Bowl, a historic drought combined with severe storms that destroyed much of the farmland in middle America during the Great Depression of the 1930s. This historical setting, not just Route 66 but the context of the Dust Bowl and the Great Depression, makes the story of the Joad family emblematic of an entire era in American history.
WRITING PRACTICE Read the opening stage directions Lorrain Hansberry wrote for her play A Raisin in the Sun. What is the connection between setting and the characters? How does this opening section suggest ideas likely to be explored during the course of the play? Annotate the excerpt and staple to your paper.