NOVEL AND DRAMA
3.1. ELEMENTS OF FICTION
Fiction:
- A literary
work whose content is produced by the imagination and is not necessarily
based on fact.
- The writing
that comes from a writer’s imagination. It can be inspired by actual
events or completely made up.
- That which is
feigned, invented, or imagined; especially, a feigned or invented story,
whether oral or written. Hence: A story told in order to deceive; a
fabrication; -- opposed to fact, or reality.
- Fiction may be
either written or oral. Although not all fiction is necessarily artistic,
fiction is largely perceived as a form of art and/or entertainment.
The kinds of fiction — also called genres —
include poetry, prose narrative fiction, and drama
1. Drama: It is a form of literature/fiction
acted out by performers. Performers work with the playwright, director, set and
lighting designers to stage a show.
Drama differs from short stories and novels
because it is made to be performed by different actors in different locations
throughout time. While the script remains the same, actors' interpretations of
a single role may differ.
There are two basic types of drama:
A.
Tragedy - a serious, solemn play based on an important social, personal, or
religious issue.
B.
Comedy - a play that shows the humorous actions of characters when they try to solve social, personal, or religious
problems.
2. Novel:
The word ‘novel’ came into use during the Renaissance
(14th century to 17th century), when Italian writer Giovanni Boccaccio
applied the term novella to the short prose narratives in his Il decamerone
(1353; Ten Day’s Work). When his tales were translated, the term novel passed
into the English language. The word novella is now used in English to refer to
short novels.
- The novel is a
unique form of fiction. It is a long work of written fiction. Most novels
involve many characters and tell a complex story by placing the characters
in a number of different situations.
- A book length
story in prose, whose author tries to create a sense that, while we read,
we experience actual life.”
(X.
J. Kennedy)
- “An extended
fictional narrative, usually written in prose.”
(Anonymous)
- “An imaginary
work in prose of a considerable length, which presents as real certain
characters living in a given environment and describes their attitudes,
fate, and adventures.” (Percy Lubbock )
- “The novel is
like a symphony
In that the closing movement
Echoes and resounds with all
that
has gone before…” (By John Gardner)
Because novels are long—generally 200 pages
or more—novelists can tell more richly detailed tales than can authors of
briefer literary forms such as the short story.
Many readers consider the novel the most flexible type of literature, and thus
the one with the most possibilities. For example, writers can produce novels
that have the tension of a drama,
the scope of an epic
poem, the type of commentary found in an essay,
and the imagery and rhythm of a lyric poem.
Over the centuries writers have continually experimented with the novel form,
and it has constantly evolved in new directions.
Like the short story,
the novel tells a story, but unlike the short story, it presents more than an
episode. In a novel, the writer has the freedom to develop plot, characters,
and theme slowly. The novelist can also surround the main plot with subplots
that flesh out the tale. Unlike short stories, most novels have numerous shifts
in time, place, and focus of interest.
Like epic
poetry, the novel may celebrate grand designs or great events, but unlike epic
poetry it also may pay attention to details of everyday life, such as people's
daily tasks and social obligations. For example, the epic the Iliad by ancient
Greek poet Homer
depicts the Trojan War
in grand terms but does not comment on the experience of the common soldiers.
By contrast, in his novel Madame Bovary (1857), French writer Gustave Flaubert
shows the main character shopping and worrying about household expenses.
Like a playwright, a novelist tells a story,
but a novelist has more freedom than a playwright to portray events outside the
framework of the immediate story, such as historical events that happen at the
same time as the story. The playwright is more limited in this way because
description in dramas
is generally conveyed through dialogue between characters. In a play, rarely
does a narrator speak directly to the audience, as the narrator of a novel can.
Novelists can also make smoother changes in time and place than can
playwrights, who must write their works so that they can be performed on stage.
Like the people in the Bible,
the novel’s characters may search for God and have their own particular dreams
and ideals, but unlike many biblical characters, the characters in novels are
generally presented as people without spiritual missions and destinies. For
example, in the Bible, the prophets Ezekiel
and Isaiah
call on the Hebrew people to live more righteously. By contrast, although the
character Levin in Anna Karenina (1875-1877) by Russian novelist Leo Tolstoy
is obsessed with the moral life, he is also a farmer, thinker, husband, and
society man who must attend to the needs of everyday life.
Unlike writers of allegories
or parables,
novelists do not use characters solely as emblems. The biblical parable of the
prodigal son, which tells of a man who forgives his son for the errors of his
ways, explores ideas of Christian forgiveness but does not investigate the
characters of the family members in great detail. By contrast, the works of
Russian writer Fyodor Dostoyevsky,
which also explore themes of forgiveness, demonstrate the anguish of
guilt-ridden men and women. In Dostoyevsky’s Prestuplanie i nakazanie (1866;
Crime and Punishment) a man commits a murder and escapes punishment from
authorities. However, he still suffers because his own conscience is burdened
by the knowledge of the wrong he has done.
Development
of the Novel
The English name is derived from the
Italian novella, meaning "a little new thing." Romances and novelle,
short tales in prose, were predecessors of the novel, as were picaresque
narratives. Picaro is Spanish for "rogue," and the typical picaresque
story is of the escapades of a rascal who lives by his wits. The development of
the realistic novel owes much to such works, which were written to deflate
romantic or idealized fictional forms. Cervantes' Don Quixote (1605-15), the
story of an engaging madman who tries to live by the ideals of chivalric
romance, explores the role of illusion and reality in life and was the single
most important progenitor of the modern novel.
The novel broke from those narrative
predecessors that used timeless stories to mirror unchanging moral truths. It
was a product of an intellectual milieu shaped by the great seventeenth-century
philosophers, Descartes and Locke, who insisted upon the importance of
individual experience. They believed that reality could be discovered by the
individual through the senses. Thus, the novel emphasized specific, observed
details. It individualized its characters by locating them precisely in time
and space. And its subjects reflected the popular eighteenth-century concern
with the social structures of everyday life.
The novel is often said to have emerged
with the appearance of Daniel Defoe's Robinson Crusoe (1719) and Moll Flanders (1722). Both are picaresque stories, in that
each is a sequence of episodes held together largely because they happen to one
person. But the central character in both novels is so convincing and set in so
solid and specific a world that Defoe is often credited with being the first
writer of "realistic" fiction.
The
first "novel of character" or psychological novel is Samuel
Richardson's Pamela (1740-41), an epistolary novel (or novel in which the
narrative is conveyed entirely by an exchange of letters). It is a work
characterized by the careful plotting of emotional states. Even more
significant in this vein is Richardson
Defoe and Richardson were the first great
writers in our literature who did not take their plots from mythology, history,
legend, or previous literature. They established the novel's claim as an
authentic account of the actual experience of individuals.
Reasons for the Novel's Popularity
Since the eighteenth century, and
particularly since the Victorian period, the novel, replacing poetry and drama,
has become the most popular of literary forms--perhaps because it most closely
represents the lives of the majority of people. The novel became increasingly
popular as its social scope expanded to include characters and stories about
the middle and working classes. Because of its readership, which included a
large percentage of women and servants, the novel became the form which most
addressed the domestic and social concerns of these groups.
Nineteenth-century novelists like Thackeray
and Dickens often told their stories through an omniscient
narrator, who is aware of all the events and the motivations of all
the characters of the novel. Through this technique the writer can reveal the
thoughts of any character without explaining how this information is obtained.
Henry James, who began writing in the last third of the nineteenth century,
used the technique of point-of-view narration so completely that the minds of
his characters became the real basis of interest of the novel. In such works,
our knowledge of events and characters is itself limited by the limitations of
this character or central consciousness.
Since Henry James' time, many writers have
experimented with shifting the focus of the novel further inward to examine human
consciousness. Writers like Virginia Woolf, James Joyce, and William Faulkner
used a method of narration known as stream of consciousness, which attempts to
reproduce the flow of consciousness. Perceptions, thoughts, judgments,
feelings, associations, and memories are presented just as they occur, without
being shaped into grammatical sentences or logical sequences. In
stream-of-consciousness narration, all narrators are to some degree unreliable,
which reflects the twentieth century's preoccupation with the relativity and
the subjective nature of experience, of knowledge, and of truth.
Proliferation of Types
The novel continues in its popularity to this
day. It has moved away from a primarily realistic focus and has evolved into
the expansive form that incorporates all other fictional modes. Today, for
example, there are many types of novels. There is the allegorical novel, which
uses character, place, and event to represent abstract ideas and to demonstrate
some thesis. The science fiction novel relies on scientific or
pseudo-scientific machinery to create a future society which parallels our own.
The historical novel is set in the past and takes its characters and events
from history. The social novel is concerned with the influence of societal institutions
and of economic and social conditions on characters and events. These three
types, the science fiction, social, and historical novel, tend to be didactic,
to instruct readers in the necessity for changing their morality, their lives,
and the institutions of society. The regional novel presents the influence of a
particular locale on character and events. The detective novel is a combination
of the picaresque and psychological novel in that it reveals both events and
their motivation. And there are many others.
ELEMENTS OF FICTION
1. Plot:
In literature, a plot is all the events in a
story particularly rendered towards the achievement of some particular artistic or emotional
effect. In other words, it's what mostly happened in the story or novel or what
the story's general theme is based on, such as the mood, characters, setting,
and conflicts occurring in a story. An intricate, complicated plot is known as
an imbroglio. A plot is a scheme, or a series of events in a narrative work.
Sequence of events in a story; the writer’s plan for what happens, when it
happens, how it happens and to whom it happens. So the plot is what happens in
the story; it's the author's arrangement of the story.
A plot is a causal sequence of events, the
"why" for the things that happen in the story. The plot draws the
reader into the character's lives and helps the reader understand the choices
that the characters make.
The term “plot structure” or “dramatic
structure” refers to the parts into which a short story,
a novel,
a play, a screenplay,
or a narrative poem can be divided.
Aristotle
required ‘plot’ to be an organic whole, i.e. he divided drama into three parts:
a proper beginning, a transitional middle, and a convincing end.
According to Aristotle,
in simple plot, the change of fortune of the hero occurs without
‘Peripeteia’(Reversal of Hero’s or Heroine’s fortune) and without ‘Anagnorisis’
(Recognition/Discovery of Truth), whereas, in the complex plot, there is one or
the other or the both.
According to Aristotle,
the ideal moment of ‘Anagnorisis’ coincides ‘Peripeteia’. The classic example
is ‘Oedipus Rex’. In Sophocles' Oedipus Rex,
Oedipus experiences a reversal when he discovers that his wife is, in fact, his
mother, he puts out both of his eyes.
‘Plot’ also consists of the way a play is
organized into sections. Most plays are divided into acts and scenes.
Ancient Greek drama did not use acts and
scenes but had a system of divisions which were:
1. prologue (exposition) - the introductory
speech given to the audience at the beginning of the play.
2. parados (entry of chorus) - the parados is
the song chanted by the chorus on their entry. Their song is usually about the
action of the play and helps to build emotion in the audience.
3. episodes - modern drama would call these
scenes, or acts. There are usually four or five episodes. Each episode consists
of dialogue and action that takes place in one location at one time. Each is
separated by a choric interlude, or the strophe and antistrophe.
4. choric interlude - immediately follows
each of the episodes. Like the parados, these are songs or odes performed by
the chorus. They serve to comment on the characters' actions, express emotion,
and explain the plot. Also, because Greek theatre had no curtain, the
interludes indicate a change of scene.
5. strophe and antistrophe - these are terms
that describe the chorus' movement from one side of the stage to the other. For
the strophe, they are on one side of the stage, and for the antistrophe, they
move to the other. When the chorus speaks outside of these interludes, directly
with the characters, their lines are said by only one member of the chorus,
their leader.
6. exodus - the final scene and resolution-
The ancient Greek episodic structural pattern gradually evolved into a five
part division of action. By the 16th century, most plays had five acts with as
many scenes as needed. The playwright determines how many acts and scenes the
play will have.
Perhaps equally influential to writers and
literary critics alike has been the analysis of dramatic structure of Gustav Freytag,
(July 13,
1816 – April 30,
1895), a German dramatist
and novelis,
who divides drama into five acts.
In the exposition, the background information
that is needed to properly understand the story is provided. Such information
includes the protagonist, the antagonist, the basic conflict, the setting, and
so forth. For example, at the commencement of the dramatic action of ‘Othello’,
the situation is that Othello and Desdimona have secretly married; and Cassio,
rather than Iago, has been made Othello’s lieutenant.
During rising action, the basic conflict is
complicated by the introduction of related secondary conflicts, including
various obstacles that frustrate the protagonist’s attempt to reach their goal.
For example, Iago recognizes that Cassio’s courteous attention to Desdimona can
be used to make Othello jealous.
The third act is that of the climax, or
turning point, which marks a change, for the better or the worse, in the
protagonist’s affairs. If the story is a comedy, things will have gone badly
for the protagonist up to this point; now, the tide, so to speak, will turn,
and things will begin to go well for him or her. If the story is a tragedy, the
opposite state of affairs will ensue, with things going from good to bad for
the protagonist. For example, through the machinations of Iago, Othello sees Desdimona’s
handkerchief in the hand of Cassio and concludes that she must die for her
infidelity.
During the falling action, the conflict
between the protagonist and the antagonist unravels, with the protagonist
winning or losing against the antagonist.
Here the protagonist loses control. For example, Othello kills
Desdimona.
The falling action follows the climax. Therefore, it deals with the effects
that the climax has on the characters. For instance, in ‘ Othello’ Othello
kills himself when he learns of Desdimona’s innocence.
Similarly, in Oedipus Rex,
by the Greek playwright Sophocles, the climax comes when Oedipus
realizes that the man he killed was his father, Laius, and the woman he
married was his mother, Jocasta. In the falling action, Oedipus and Jocasta deal with
this revelation. Jocasta does this by killing herself and Oedipus does this by
blinding himself.
The comedy ends with a dénouement (a
conclusion) in which the protagonist is better off than at the story’s outset.
The tragedy ends with a catastrophe in which the protagonist is worse off than
at the beginning of the narrative.
Although Freytag’s analysis of dramatic
structure is based on five-act plays, it can be applied (sometimes in a
modified manner) to short stories and novels as well. Plot concerns the
organization of the main events of a work of fiction. Plot differs from story
in that plot is concerned with how events are related, how they are structured,
and how they enact change in the major characters.
Most plots will trace some process of change in which characters are caught up
in a conflict that is eventually resolved. Plots may be fully integrated or
"tightly knit," or episodic
in nature.
E. M. Forster formulated the difference most
memorably. He observed that if we write “The king died, and the queen
died,” we have a narrative, but if we write, instead, “The king died, and the queen
died of grief,” then we have a plot line.
The plot of a novel is the narrative and
thematic development of the story—that is, what happens and what these events
mean. English novelist E. M. Forster,
author of works such as A Room with a View (1908) and Howards End (1910),
referred to the plot as a “narrative of events, the emphasis falling on
causality.” By this statement he meant that plot is a series of events that
depend on one another, not a sequence of unrelated episodes.
Plot is usually centered around a conflict (a
problem or struggle involving two or more opposing forces. The conflict
may be of following types:
- Person versus
society
- Person versus
Fate
- Person versus
self
For example:
- in ‘Great
Expectations’ by Charles Dickens,
Pip, Magwitch, Miss Havisham, are all having conflict with the
society around.
- In Hardy’s
novels, the main character is always in conflict with fate.
- In Marlowe’s
‘Dr. Faustus’ the hero is in conflict with fate.
- In
Shakespeare’s ‘Hamlet’ the hero has to fight against himself as well as
against Claudius and his agents.
Life is not without chance happenings and nor
drama or novel should be. However, it should be in accordance with the law of
necessity and the law of probability.
Subplot:
This is a sequence (or sequences) of events
that parallels the main plot; it can closely resemble the main plot or it can
diverge in significant ways in order to highlight the main plot.
An episodic plot features distinct episodes
that are related to one another but that can also be read individually, almost
as stories by themselves. In ‘Don Quixote’
by Miguel de
Cervantes follows the travels of a Spanish nobleman who encounters
adventures and misfortunes after he strikes out to combat the world’s
injustices. Although the novel has a plot, it is structured so that if the
reader skips an episode, he or she can still follow Don Quixote’s progress with
little loss of understanding.
A more complicated type of episodic novel is
the bildungsroman, a novel about the early years of a person’s life, or a
person’s moral or psychological growth. (The term comes from the German for
“education novel.”) The bildungsroman traces not adventures but stages of
growth in the life of a character. Famous novels of this type include David
Copperfield (1849-1850), in which English novelist Charles Dickens
traces David’s life from childhood misery to worldly success.
Most novels involve more complex plots, in
which the story builds on itself so that each episode evolves out of a previous
one and produces another one. Many novels have more complex plots that follow
more than one major character or have more than one major story line. A classic
example of a novel with a complex plot is ‘War and Peace’ by Russian writer Leo Tolstoy.
This book is concerned with the histories of five families from 1805 to 1814
and with the Russian military campaign against the invading French army led by Napoleon I.
The book features aristocrats and peasants, officers and common soldiers,
diplomats and courtiers, town life and country life, flirtations, galas,
hunting, and harshly realistic scenes of clashing armies.
The subject matter that novels with complex
plot can cover is almost limitless. Some novels, like ‘War and Peace’, cover
all segments of society. Others, such as ‘Pride and Prejudice’ (1813) by
English author Jane Austen,
cover narrower subject matter. Austen’s novel is set in roughly the same time
period as ‘War and Peace’. However, Pride and Prejudice focuses on one
upper-class family, the Bennets, and in particular on the Bennet daughters’
search for husbands.
Some plots are based less on the physical
action of events than on the emotional reactions of characters and their
efforts to communicate their feelings to others. And some novelists experiment
with plot, interrupting the main story with subplots, moving back and forth in
time, or merging fact with fiction.
In ‘Madame Bovary’ (1857) by French novelist Gustave Flaubert,
for example, traces Emma Bovary’s problems in three relationships as her
marriage degenerates and her two lovers betray her. Everything in the novel
arises from the conflict between her romantic ideals about life and the
realities of her middle-class existence.
People, animal, or imaginary creatures that
take part in the action of the story.
Readers can learn about characters in many
ways, including:
- Physical
traits
- Dialogue
- Actions
- Attire
- Opinions
- Point of
view
Qualities of a personality may be either
physical and superficial (external) or psychological and spiritual (internal).
Characters can possess both types of traits.
External characteristics (characteristics
that flat, one-dimensional characters possess):
- names
- physical appearance
- physical nature
- manner of speech and accent
- manner of dress
- social status
- class
- education
- friends
- family
- community interests
Internal characteristics (characters that round,
multi-dimensional characters possess):
- thoughts
- feelings
- emotions
The protagonist or main character is the
central figure of a story.
It is not necessarily clear what being this central figure exactly entails. The
terms protagonist, main character and hero are variously (and rarely well)
defined and depending on the source may denote different concepts. The word
"protagonist" derives from the Greek
πρωταγωνιστής (protagonistes), "one who plays the first part, chief
actor". Etymologically, it means the first contestant.
In the Greek drama, where the term arose, all
the parts were played by one, two, or three actors (the more actors, the later
the play), and the best actor, who got the principal part(s), was the
protagonist. The second best actor was called the deuteragonist. Ideally, the
term “protagonist” should be used only for the principal character.
Several other characters can be defined by
their relation to the protagonist. The antagonist (or villain) is his principal
rival in the conflict set forth in the play. He causes problems for the
protagonist. For example: In Shakespeare's play, ‘Othello’, Othello is the
protagonist and Iago is the antagonist (Desdemona can also be considered to be
a protagonist).
A table is given below to give some examples
from novels:
|
Novel
|
Protagonist
|
Antagonist
|
|
Lord of the Flies
|
Ralph
|
Jack
|
|
Tom Jones
|
Tom Jones
|
Blifil
|
A foil is a character who defines certain
characteristics in the protagonist by exhibiting opposite traits or the same
traits in a greater or lesser degree.
A confidant(e) provides a ready ear to which
the protagonist can address certain remarks which should be heard by the
audience but not by the other characters. In ‘Wuthering Heights
In Hamlet, for example, Hamlet is the
protagonist, Claudius the antagonist, Laertes and Fortinbras foils (observe the
way in which each goes about avenging the death or loss of property of his
father), and Horatio the confidant.
Another type of character is the stereotype
or stock character, a character who reappears in various forms in many plays.
Comedy is particularly a fruitful source of such figures, including the miles
gloriosus or boastful soldier (a man who claims great valor but proves to
be a coward when tested), the irascible old man (the source of
elements in the character of Polonius), the witty servant, the coquette, the
prude, the fop, and others. A stock character from another genre is the
revenger of Renaissance tragedy. The role of Hamlet demonstrates how such
a stereotype is modified by an author to create a great role, combining the
stock elements with individual ones. In Shakespearean comedies, the
stock character is the heroine, disguised as the boy and a clever servant.
A group of actors who function as a unit,
called a chorus, was a characteristic feature of the Greek tragedy. The members
of the chorus shared a common identity, such as Asian Bacchantes or old men
of Thebes Canterbury
Characters can be either flat or round. These
terms are introduced in his book ‘Aspects of Novel’. Round characters are characters who are complex and
realistic; they represent a depth of personality which is imitative of life.
They frequently possess both good and bad traits, and they may react
unexpectedly or become entangled in their own interior conflicts. These
characters have been fully developed by an author, physically, mentally, and
emotionally, and are detailed enough to seem real. A round character is usually
a main character, and is developed over the course of the story. A flat
character is its opposite, having hardly any development whatsoever.
A character who changes inside as a result of
what happens to him is referred to in literature as a DYNAMIC character. A
dynamic character grows or progresses to a higher level of understanding in the
course of the story.
Protagonists
are normally round characters. Antagonists
are often round as well, though comedic villains
may be almost farcically
flat. Examples of round characters include Elizabeth Bennet and Darcy of Jane
Austen’s ‘Pride and Prejudice’.
A flat character
is distinguished by its lack of a realistic personality. Flat characters are sometimes referred to as STATIC
characters because they do not change in the course of the story. Though the description of a flat character may be
detailed and rich in defining characteristics, it falls short of the complexity
associated with a round character. Examples of flat characters include
Elizabeth Jane and Binglet of Jane Austen’s ‘Pride and Prejudice’.
3. Setting:
The time and place in which the action of the
story happens. It consists of:
- Time of day or
year
- Geographical
location
- Climate or
weather
- Immediate
surroundings of character
Narrative requires a setting; this as in
poetry may vary from the concrete to the general. Often setting will have
particular culturally coded significance -- a sea-shore has a significance for
us different from that of a dirty street corner, for instance, and different
situations and significances can be constructed through its use. Settings, like
characters, can be used in contrasting and comparative ways to add
significance, can be repeated, repeated with variations, and so forth.
Setting can be:
- real or
imaginary
- can take place
in past, present, or the future.
The setting of a novel—the time and place of
its action—is crucial to the creation of a complete work. Physical places such
as deserts and outer space, as well as cultural settings such as hospitals and
universities, help determine characters’ conflicts, aspirations, and destinies.
In the 19th century Charles Dickens
of England
Some novelists pay less attention to specific
physical objects. English writer Jane Austen,
for example, is less concerned with items in a room than Dickens is, but this
does not mean she is not concerned with social environment. In focusing, rather
precisely, on details such as Mr. Bennet’s income in Pride and Prejudice (1813)
or Mr. Eliot’s background in Persuasion (1818), she creates an atmosphere in
which a character’s background and home town—whether London, the town of
Meryton, or somewhere in northern England—becomes central to the story.
Sometimes novelists make time and place so
essential to the narrative that they become as important as the characters
themselves. Often this occurs when novels are set in a single, distinctive
location. For example, ‘Wuthering Heights’ (1847) by English novelist Emily Brontë,
‘The Scarlet Letter’ (1850) by American writer Nathaniel
Hawthorne, and Tess of the d’Urbervilles’ (1891) by English novelist
Thomas Hardy
are inconceivable without their settings of Stonehenge, colonial New England,
and the Yorkshire moors, respectively.
Functions
of Setting
1. Setting as a background for action
2. Setting as antagonist
3. Setting as a means of creating appropriate
atmosphere
4. Setting as a means of revealing character
5. Setting as a means of reinforcing theme
Examples of Setting
I.
A deserted island in ‘Lord of the Flies’
II.
The city of Chandrapore in
‘A Passage to India
4. Theme:
This is the central idea which runs through
the novel; the author's purpose in writing. The main message about life that
the writer conveys to the reader. It is the point of view from which the
author is writing and there may be a moral to the story - such as the need for
social reform in many of Dickens' novels.
Theme can also be defined as the underlying meaning of the story. Themes
are not usually stated in the story but are implicit.
The theme gives the story focus, unity,
impact and a 'point'. The theme becomes clear by looking at what happens to the
major characters. If the main character survives while others don't, it shows
us that his (or her) behaviour is being rewarded by the author. A novel’s theme
is the main idea that the writer expresses. The theme of a
novel is more than its subject matter, because an author’s technique can play
as strong a role in developing a theme as the actions of the characters do.
The theme of a fable is its moral. The theme
of a parable is its teaching. The theme of a piece of fiction is its view about
life and how people behave.
In fiction, the theme is not intended to
teach or preach. In fact, it is not presented directly at all. You extract it
from the characters, action, and setting that make up the story. In other
words, you must figure out the theme yourself.
The writer's task is to communicate on a
common ground with the reader. Although the particulars of your experience may
be different from the details of the story, the general underlying truths
behind the story may be just the connection that both you and the writer are
seeking
Examples
of themes:
1.
The Little Engine That Could: Never Give Up
2.
The Ugly Duckling: Beauty is Only Skin-Deep
3.
The Tortoise and the Hare: Slow and Steady Wins the Race
4.
The Boy Who Cried Wolf: Being Truthful is Important
5.
Lord of the Flies: Man is more inclined towards evil.
The point of view of a literary work is the
perspective from which the reader views the action and characters.
In short fiction, who tells the story and how
it is told are critical issues for an author to decide. The tone and feel of
the story, and even its meaning, can change radically depending on who is
telling the story.
The three major types of point of view in
novels are
I.
Objective Point of View:
With the objective point of view, the writer tells what happens without stating more than can be inferred from the story's action and dialogue. The narrator never discloses anything about what the characters think or feel, remaining a detached observer. This technique is used in plays.
With the objective point of view, the writer tells what happens without stating more than can be inferred from the story's action and dialogue. The narrator never discloses anything about what the characters think or feel, remaining a detached observer. This technique is used in plays.
II.
Omniscient (all-knowing narrator outside the story itself):
Many of the earliest novels used the omniscient narrator in such a fashion. In
Tom Jones (1749), English novelist Henry Fielding
provides brief overviews at the beginning of each major section.
The omniscient
point of view has advantages and disadvantages. Using an omniscient narrator
allows a writer to be extremely clear about plot developments. This point of
view also exposes the reader to the actions and thoughts of many characters and
deepens the reader’s understanding of the various aspects of the story.
However, using an omniscient narrator can make a novel seem too authoritarian
and artificial, because in their own lives people do not have this all-knowing
power. If clumsily executed, providing thick detail may cause the reader to
lose sight of the central plot within a mass of scenes, settings, and
characters.
III. First-person
(observations of a character who narrates the story): ‘David Copperfield’ and ‘Great Expectations’ by English novelist Charles Dickens
are narrated by the protagonists.
6. Language:
The language used by the author also reveals
the theme and purpose of the novel. A writer's use of language reveals his or
her tone, or the attitude toward the subject matter.
It may be characterized by:
- the complexity
of sentence and paragraph structure;
- the use of
humour, satire and irony
- imagery and
other poetic devices and word choice all contribute to our appreciation of
the characters and events which involve them
- the reader can
be left totally unconcerned about the fate of characters or can shed tears
when some tragic end overtakes them.
7. Genres:
Subject or category of literature; novels can
fall into multiple genres
- Historical
Novel
- Nonfiction Novel
- Bildungsroman
Novel
- Picaresque
Novel
- Trilogy Novel
- Novelette or
Novella
8. Irony:
A contrast or discrepancy between one thing
and another.
I.
Verbal irony--We understand the opposite of what the
speaker says. For example, in English dramatist William Shakespeare’s play
Julius Caesar, Mark Antony bitterly describes the men who have murdered Caesar
as “honorable.” In Shakespeare’s tragic play Othello, the title character
repeatedly describes treacherous Iago as “honest.”
II.
Irony of Circumstance or Situational Irony--When one event
is expected to occur but the opposite happens. A discrepancy between what seems
to be and what is. An example of situational irony would occur if a
professional pickpocket had his own pocket picked just as he was in the act of
picking someone else's pocket.
III. Dramatic Irony--Discrepancy between what
characters know and what readers know. In Oedipus Rex, by Greek
dramatist Sophocles, Oedipus attempts to find the
murderer of Laius, king of Thebes
9.
Symbolism:
Many novels have
two layers of meaning. The first is in the literal plot, the second in a
symbolic layer in which images and objects represent abstract ideas and
feelings. Using symbols allows authors to express themselves indirectly on
delicate or controversial matters.
Novelists have created symbolic patterns of
imagery since the beginning of the genre. One famous example of symbolism is
the letter A in The Scarlet Letter (1850) by American writer Nathaniel
Hawthorne. In the novel, the character Hester Prynne wears a
scarlet-colored ‘A on her dress to symbolize adultery, of which she was found
guilty by judges in her community.
Charles Dickens’
character, Miss Havisham, is a symbol of the exploitation done by the criminals
in the Victorian age.
In William Golding’s novel ‘Lord of the
Flies’ characters are the symbols of various abstract qualities and values:
such as Ralph is the symbol of culture; Jack of dictatorship or barbarism;
Piggy of wisdom; Simon of reflection; and the naval officer is the symbol of
divine help.
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