Transcript According to ms. Hayes and Holt, rinehart and winston

Elements of Short Stories
…ACCORDING TO MS. HAYES AND HOLT, RINEHART AND WINSTON
HOW DO YOU DEFINE A SHORT STORY?
A story that is short, right? Come on, you can
do better than that.
 It is a piece of prose that can be read at one
time.
 What is prose, you may ask. Prose is ordinary
writing, like in a paragraph. It is the opposite of
poetry and doesn’t have rhyme and meter.
 Remember: writing is divided into two
categories: poetry and prose.

CHARACTERIZATION

Characterization:
 the act of creating and
then developing those
characters

Two Types:
 Direct
 Indirect
DIRECT CHARACTERIZATION

Always a direct comment from the narrator
 From

TRUE! nervous, very, very dreadfully nervous I had been and
am.
 From

“The Tell-Tale Heart” by Poe
“The Gift of the Magi” by O. Henry
Now, there were two possessions of the James Dillingham
Youngs in which they both took a mighty pride. One was Jim's
gold watch that had been his father's and his grandfather's.
The other was Della's hair.
INDIRECT CHARACTERIZATION

Judgments by the reader based on a
character’s speech
I will get her and
her little dog, too.
and actions
Judgments based on how the
character looks and dresses

INDIRECT CHARACTERIZATION 2

Letting the reader hear the character’s inner
thoughts and feelings
Nerve, nerve,
nerve…I must
keep my wits.

Revealing what other characters in the story
think or say about a character

From Charles Dickens’ A Christmas Carol:

"I have no patience with him," observed Scrooge's niece. Scrooge's niece's sisters, and all the other
ladies, expressed the same opinion.

"Oh, I have," said Scrooge's nephew. "I am sorry for him; I couldn't be angry with him if I tried. Who suffers
by his ill whims? Himself, always. Here, he takes it into his head to dislike us, and he won't come and dine
with us. What's the consequence? He don't lose much of a dinner."
TYPES OF CHARACTERS
 Protagonist
 Antagonist
 Round
 Flat
 Dynamic
 Static
 Subordinate
PROTAGONIST
The main character
 Story focuses on this character
 Usually a good guy, but not always

ANTAGONIST
The character opposite the protagonist
 When you antagonize someone you annoy them,
so the antagonist annoys the protagonist or
causes conflict.
 Just like the protagonist is not always the good
guy, the antagonist is not always a villain.

BTW-This is
the old
man
from
“The
Tell-Tale
Heart”.
MORE CHARACTER TYPES
ROUND CHARACTERS



These characters show many
different traits.
Usually a major character
Characters we come to know,
like real people
FLAT CHARACTERS


These characters show
only one or two traits.
Commonly stereotypes




The nagging wife
The hyperactive child
The troublemaker
The mean librarian
MORE CHARACTER TYPES
DYNAMIC CHARACTERS


Characters who experience
an emotional growth due to
the story’s events
These characters usually
learn a lesson related to the
story’s theme.
STATIC CHARACTERS




These characters, on the
other hand, do not
experience emotional growth
or change.
They stay basically the same.
The story’s events have not
taught them a lesson.
Dying does not count as a
change.
SUBORDINATE CHARACTERS

These are the characters who are needed to
add depth and complication to the plot, but
they are not main characters.
MOTIVATION

the driving force behind a character’s actions
SETTING

Time and place of story
Geographical
location
Time, date,
or year
Season
Time Period
or Era
Social or Cultural
Atmosphere
Weather
Economic
Atmosphere
MOOD
A story’s atmosphere
 The feeling the story evokes in the reader
 Strongly influenced by setting

joyous
eerie
peaceful
POINT OF VIEW


The relationship of the
narrator to the story
and what the reader
sees from that vantage
point
Types




First person
Third person limited
Third person omniscient
Third person objective
FIRST-PERSON NARRATOR
•The narrator is a character in
the story.
•The readers sees only what
this character observes and
feels.
•He or she is commonly the
protagonist.
•Refers to himself or herself
with the first-person
pronouns, such as I, me, my,
mine, our(s), we, and us
UNRELIABLE NARRATOR




Untrustworthy
As the reader, you are
not sure that you can
believe everything the
narrator tells you.
Especially true with firstperson because the
reader gets one side of
the story
First person narration
includes bias and
opinion.
HOWEVER, some first-person
narrators are reliable; as the
reader, you must decide based on
the evidence in the story.
THIRD-PERSON LIMITED




Narrator is outside of the
story.
Narrator is limited to
focusing on the internal
thoughts and emotions of
one character at a time.
Technically, this means the
narration can shift from one
character to another.
Uses the third-person
pronouns he, she, him, or
her


Ernest Hemingway's The Old
Man and the Sea
“Then he looked behind him
and saw that no land was
visible. That makes no
difference, he thought. I can
always come in on the glow
from Havana.”
THIRD-PERSON OMNISCIENT




Omniscient is Latin for
all-knowing.
Narrator is outside of the
story.
Narrator can focus on the
thoughts of many
characters and their
situations.
Sort of like an eye that
can see into any aspect
of the story that he or she
chooses
THIRD-PERSON OBJECTIVE


The narrator is totally outside
of the story and relates only
what he sees or hears.
He doesn’t know any of the
characters’ thoughts and
feelings.

Like a reporter, telling the
story without judgment, just
giving the facts

Like a fly on the wall
Some literary examples:
“Young Goodman Brown”
by Nathaniel Hawthorne
“The Lottery”
by Shirley Jackson
“Animal Farm”
by George Orwell
TONE

The author’s attitude
toward his or her work

Tone is conveyed through
the author’s word choice.
Somber
Contemplative
Sentimental
Objective
Wrathful
Optimistic
Vengeful
Sarcastic
Nostalgic
Reminiscent
Neutral
Regretful
Thoughtful
Sympathetic
Gloomy
Restrained
Unsympathetic
Critical
Ridiculing
PLOT
Plot: A series of events through which the writer reveals
what is happening, to whom it happens, and why
Broken down into five major sections:
Exposition
Rising action
Climax
Falling action
Resolution (or to those more refined, the denouement)
PARTS OF THE PLOT

Exposition—beginning of the story; background info;
sets scene for characters and conflict;
exposition “exposes”

Rising Action—events leading to climax

Climax—moment of greatest emotional intensity; the
point during which the conflict will be decided; very
close to the end of the story

Falling Action—Results of climax; events leading to
resolution

Resolution or Denouement—the outcome of the
conflict, i.e. they lived happily ever after
CONFLICT

Conflict: A struggle
between opposing
forces, be it man,
woman, child, beast,
crazy townspeople, or
a two-ton iceberg
CONFLICTS
Man vs. Man-external
struggle between two or more individuals


Man vs. Himself—internal struggle concerning
emotion and decision
Jack or Cal….Cal or
Jack?
What will I do with that nice
old man who happens to be
blind in one eye?
To be or not to be…
that is the question.
CONFLICT


Man vs. Environment
An external struggle between man and an element of his
surroundings (not necessarily nature)
CONFLICT

Man vs. society—an external struggle between
man an element of his culture’s traditions, beliefs,
government, values, customs, etc.
SUBJECTS VS. THEMES



Subjects are the words that
immediately come to your
mind as topics broached in
a story.

Theme—the central message
the writer is trying to reveal in
his or her work;

Always ask yourself as the
reader: “What message is
this author trying to convey to
me?”

Theme shows a generalized
truth about human nature.

Theme is not the subject;
therefore, theme is written as
a complete sentence.
Subjects are brief, usually
one word—for example, love,
hate, jealousy, revenge, war,
etc.
Subjects are the words that
writers use to elaborate
upon to create the deeper,
more abstract themes of
stories.
SUBJECT VS. THEME

Subjects
Themes

Love


Jealousy


Forgiveness


War

Love will cause people to do things they
usually wouldn’t.
Jealousy causes more harm than good.
Giving forgiveness allows a person who
has been betrayed to move on with
his/her life without growing bitter and
cynical.
Wars often occur due to the greed of a
small number of people though many
more innocent people usually die.
IRONY

Irony is the contrast between an expectation
and reality.
SITUATIONAL IRONY

A contrast between what you would expect to
happen and what really happens
VERBAL IRONY

A writer speaks or says one
thing but means something
completely different.

Sometimes verbal irony is very
obvious sarcasm, but not
always.

Other characters may or may not
understand the irony of what
another character is saying.
Yet Brutus says
[Caesar] was
ambitious, and
Brutus is an
honorable man.
Antony says this after
Brutus has killed
Caesar—his best friend.
He really believes Brutus
to be a murderer.
Well, it is so
great to see
you!
…Even though
these two are arch
nemeses.
DRAMATIC IRONY

The audience or reader
knows something that
at least one character
does not.

The word “drama” helps
to remember this
because it is often
found in plays and
movies.
THE END
…and now you see what happens
when a teacher is stuck at home
for a week due to snow days!