Transcript The Art of Fiction “Fiction is prose text in the form of a story that is primarily a product of human imagination” (Soles.

The Art of Fiction
“Fiction is prose text in the form of a story
that is primarily a product of human
imagination” (Soles 5).
Forms of Fiction
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Fiction comes in many forms:
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Short stories
Novellas
Novels
Epistolary tales
Parables and Fables
Anecdotes
Jokes
Evaluating Fiction
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Aristotle, a famous scholar from ancient
Greece, in his Poetics formed certain theories
of evaluating literature. Some ideas that have
developed from his work into aesthetic
principles are:
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That the best works of literature have no elements that are
extraneous to the communication of the piece’s message.
That the use of the elements be manipulated to best
convey that piece’s message
In other words, we expect works of literature
to be unified.
Theme
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Most works of fiction should tell a story of
some sort, bringing together a sequence of
events with an underlying meaning or
message.
This underlying message, as I’m sure you
know by now, is called the theme, and it is
just as important in the study of literature as it
is in film.
Definition of Theme
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We’ll use “the moral or lesson that the reader
learns and can apply to his or her own life” as
the definition of theme.
More Elements to Consider
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Elements of Fiction
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Plot
Character
Point of View
Setting
Style/Figurative Language
Plot
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Plot is the sequence of events in a story and
their relation to one another
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Answers what happened and why
 Resolves questions brought up within the work—
Poe’s “single effect”
Freytag’s Pyramid
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A plot will present a problem or conflict that will need to be resolved by its
end.
The story provides necessary background information at the beginning,
exposition, and then increase the dramatic tension with various plot
complications.
As the action rises to its climax, the point of highest tension, the audience
anticipates the resolution.
Barbara F. McManus, professor
of classics emerita at the College
of New Rochelle, has created an
alternate diagram of the pyramid
Character
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Characters are the people or creatures who
move and live in the plot.
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Protagonist refers to the fiction’s main character
Antagonist refers to the character who opposes
the protagonist
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Characters may be fully developed (round) or
stereotypically shallow (flat)
They may be dynamic (changing) or static
Significant Ways of Providing
Characterization
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Personality
Health
Physical Description
History
Motivation
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Plausible actions
 Consistent
Point of View
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The point of view describes how a piece of
fiction is revealed to the audience, from
whose or what perspective it is revealed.
The narrator (like a poem’s speaker) relays
the events of the story to the audience
Types of Narration
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Third Person: narrator is not involved
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Omniscient: all-knowing
Limited omniscient: restricts the narration to one
character’s or to just a few characters’ understanding.
Objective: No access to the thoughts of any character
First-person: narrator is a character involved in
the plot in some way
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Unreliable
 Naïve
 Stream-of-consciousness: Reader is deposited into the
mind of one character
Setting
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Setting can be defined as the time and place
where a story occurs. Setting is important
because it provides the context of the story.
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Settings can provide mood or tone
 Settings can be symbolic
Style
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Style refers to the manipulation of language
and includes the following categorical
components:
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Diction
 Syntax
 Figurative Language
Diction
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Diction refers to the word choices that the
writer has made.
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Writers choose words based on both connotative
and denotative meanings.
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They might select a word that has a double meaning to
add significance to their ideas
They might select a word whose etymology suggests
another or deeper meaning than a synonymous word.
They might select an unusual form of a word to
illustrate a geographical region or a cultural difference
between characters.
Syntax
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Syntax refers to both the way the sentences
are constructed and they way they are put
together.
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Writers might use short simple sentences
 Some may use lengthy complicated ones
 Some may mix both kinds of sentences,
depending on the meaning they are trying to
evoke.
Figurative Language
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Figurative language can be described as the
“intentional departure from the normal order,
construction, or meaning of words in order to
gain strength and freshness of expression, to
create a pictorial effect, to describe by
analogy, or to discover and illustrate
similarities in otherwise dissimilar things”
(202), according to C. Hugh Holman and
William Harmon in their A Handbook to
Literature.
Types of Figurative Language
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There are many different types of language
use, or devices, that can be considered
figurative language:
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Hyperbole
Imagery
Irony
Personification
Similes and Metaphors
Symbolism
Hyperbole
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Hyperbole is intentional exaggeration for an intended
effect, with the understanding that the reader is not
meant to believe the passage literally.
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Example: A student might say to a classmate on the way to
lunch that,”I’m so hungry I’m starving to death.” The
listening student can probably glean from the context—that
the class seemed long, that the speaking student does not
seem emaciated—that the student is not in imminent danger
of dying but that he or she was merely dramatizing the idea
that “Hey, I’m really hungry.”
Imagery
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For our purposes, imagery is a word or set of words
that create a resonance upon one or more of your
five senses.
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Consider the following use of imagery from Poe’s “The
Fall of the House of Usher”:
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I looked upon the scene before me—upon the mere house, and the
simple landscape features of the domain—upon the bleak walls—
upon the vacant eye-like windows—upon a few rank sedges—and
upon a few white trunks of decayed trees—with an utter
depression of soul which I can compare to no earthly sensation
more properly than to the after-dream of the reveler upon
opium—the bitter lapse into every-day life—the hideous dropping
off of the veil.
Irony
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This is perhaps the most misunderstood term
in the literary pantheon; even English teachers
debate over what is or is not irony.
Various Types of irony:
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Verbal
 Dramatic
 Tragic
Verbal Irony
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Verbal irony can be understood as words that evoke
a meaning opposite to what they suggest literally.
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An example of verbal irony occurs in Jonathan Swift’s “A
Modest Proposal,” when he ironically suggests that the
poverty in Ireland can be solved by having the wealthy
English purchase Irish babies from the poor to eat.
Take link to Project Gutenberg's version of The Modest
Proposal at ftp://ftp.ibiblio.org/pub/docs/books/gutenberg/etext97/mdprp10.txt
Dramatic Irony
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Dramatic irony is when the audience knows
or understands something more than a
character or characters in the work.
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In Hamlet, for example, the audience knows that
Hamlet is trying to fake metal illness to avoid
having his investigation into his father’s murder
exposed. As Claudius is not aware of this, he
begins his own investigation into the cause of
Hamlet’s psychosis.
Tragic Irony
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Tragic irony is when the character uses words that
mean differently for the character than the audience or
other characters, usually with the meaning that the
character doesn’t understand being a dark negative
one.
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Instances of these uses of irony are often contained entirely within a
text, but there can also be instances where the tragic irony is not
intended but is caused by cultural circumstances. For example, in
Sidewalks of New York, a film released in November 2001 although it
was originally slated for a September 2001, a character mentions than
nothing ever happens in New York. Given the World Trade Center
tragedy of 11 September 2001, the verbal irony becomes tragic.
More Clarification on Irony
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Generally, for something to be ironic it must
be more than an unexpected or “twist”
occurrence. The writer, in the case of endings,
for example, should have taken pains to set up
the exact opposite expectation from the one
that occurs.
“Ironic” Mistakes
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Many people sometimes mistake poetic
justice for irony. This occurs when a
character gets his or her “just desserts.”
In the popular song, “Ironic,” most of the
examples given that precede the chorus “Isn’t
it ironic?” Don’t you think?” are not.
Someone afraid to die who gets killed in a
plane crash isn’t an example of irony, just
possible an example of tragedy (or Murphy’s
Law).
Personification
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Personification occurs when a writer
give human characteristics to an
inanimate object.
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The Little Engine That Could is a
children’s story that depends upon
personification.
Anthropomorphism occurs when a
writer gives human characteristics or
motivations to animals or other living
creatures.
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Bambi is an anthropomorphism at work.
Similes and Metaphors
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A simile expresses similarity directly between
two objects, usually using “like” or “as.”
A metaphor expresses an implied analogy
between two different objects, making the
claim that the first has one or more of the
qualities of the associated with the second or
giving the first the emotional or imaginative
qualities of the second. These may use “is” to
link the objects.
Symbolism
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Symbolism happens when a writer uses one object to
stand for another. The symbol can be a word, phrase,
or idea that contains both its literal meaning and some
deeper more complex meaning.
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Symbols may be universal, or accepted by all people
educated within a certain culture.
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For example, the bald eagle can be used to symbolize the United
States of America.
Symbols may also be contextual, or have their meanings
determined by the context of the work in which they
appear.
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For example, in the film A Civil Action, water becomes symbolic of
life, truth, and honesty.
Questions for Analysis
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In Literature and Ourselves, Gloria
Henderson, William Day, and Sandra Waller
identify some key questions to help readers
determine how the elements of fiction are
being used or manipulated by writers (12-13).
The following slides give you those questions
by element.
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Questions in brown are my additions.
Plot Questions
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What is the conflict of the story? Where do you first realize that
there is a conflict?
 Can you list the steps in the development of the conflict?
 Where does the conflict reach a climax?
 What is the resolution of the conflict?
 Is that resolution satisfying to you? Why or why not?
Character Questions
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Are the characters believable? Why or why not?
 How are the characters revealed through what the
author says about them, through what the other
characters say about them, and/or through what they
say and do?
 Which characters are round? Which are flat? Does
their development/lack of development affect the
success of the story, and if so, in what way(s)?
 Do any of the characters develop or change in the
course of the story? How do these changes affect the
story?
Point of View Questions
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What is the point of view of the story?
If it is first person or third person limited, through which
character do readers see the story? Is the character a reliable
or an unreliable narrator? How does his or her personality
affect the perception of the other characters and of the action?
Could the story be told as effectively from another point of
view? If so, how and why? If not, why not?
Setting Questions
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Where and when does the story take place? How does the
author let the readers know the time and place?
Could the story take place as effectively in any other time or
place?
Is there anything unique about that setting, culturally or
psychologically? Anything symbolic?
Style Questions
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Diction: What kind of diction does the write
use? Can you describe it? Are the words easy
to recognize or obscure? Is there a lot of
technical jargon or represented accents?
Syntax: What kind of syntax is used? Could
the sentences be described as simple or
complex? Are the language and sentence
structure dictated by the point of view? If so,
how?
Style Questions, continued
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Figurative language:
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Are there any instances of hyperbole? If so, what affect
do they have upon the story?
What kind of imagery does the author use, and which of
your five senses do they resonate upon?
Does the language seem poetic?
What kind of irony, if any, is evoked in the text?
Style Questions, continued
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Figurative language, continued:
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Can you examine any instances of
personification, similes or metaphors to see if
they give any clues about the characters or the
plot events?
 Are there any symbols used in the piece? Are they
universally accepted or are they contextual? What
do they represent and how do they enrich the
story’s meaning?
 What is the tone or mood of the story? How is
that effect created?
Works Cited
Charters, Ann. The Story and Its Writer. 6th ed.
Boston: Bedford/St. Martin’s, 2003.
 Henderson, Gloria, and William Day and Sandra
Waller. Literature and Ourselves. New York:
Harper Collins College Publishers, 1994.
 Holman, C. Hugh and William Harmon, A
Handbook
to Literature. 5th Edition.
Macmillan Publishing Company, 1986.
 Soles, Derek. The Prentice Hall Pocket Guide to
Understanding Literature. Upper Saddle River,
New Jersey: Prentice Hall, 2002.
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