Literary Analysis

Prose                Drama

 Prose (novels, short stories)

 credit to: http://bluedandelion.net/english/lit_analysis.htm

The author of a fictional text chooses a narrator (fortæller) to tell his story through. Whatever he chooses will have consequences for the story being told. In his choice of narrator the author picks a special point of view. There are many variations and combinations of points of view. The most common are:

First person narrator:

The first person narrator can relate only what he/she sees, feels, knows and thinks. The reader therefore gets to know this character very well and may sympathize and identify with him/her. First-person narratives are often exciting, convincing and engaging. However, they may also be deceptive as the narrator may not always be reliable.

Example: Edgar Allan Poe, "The Tell-Tale Heart" The narrator of this horror story is raving mad. He has killed an old man because he was repelled by his staring eye. He is telling the story of how and why he did this and how the crime was eventually discovered. Throughout the story he claims to be sane though the events and the tone of the narrative demonstrate the opposite. Clearly a case of the unreliable narrator. This is how the story starts:

"True! - nervous-very, very dreadfully nervous I had been and am; but why will you say that I am mad? The disease had sharpened my senses- not destroyed- not dulled them. Above all was the sense of hearing acute. I heard all things in the heaven and in the earth. I heard many things in hell. How, then, am I mad? Hearken! and observe how healthily - how calmly I can tell you the whole story."

Third-person narrator: There are three major variations of the third-person narrative:

a. The omniscient narrator knows everything there is to know about all the characters and the reasons for and consequences of their actions. He may comment on the events/characters. This method of narrating is very common in older texts. It is not so often used in modern literature.

Example: Graham Greene, "The Destructors". In this story a gang of boys have set out to destroy from the inside and piece by piece Old Misery's house. Here follows a description of the mess they have created and the omniscient narrator's comments and interpretation of the scene:

"The kitchen was a shambles of broken glass and china. The dining-room was stripped of parquet, the skirting was up, the door had been taken off its hinges, and the destroyers had moved up a floor. Streaks of light came in through the closed shutters where they worked with the seriousness of creators- and destruction is after all a form of creation. A kind of imagination had seen this house as it had now become."

b. The objective narrator knows only what he/she can see from the outside about the characters and their actions. He/she does not know anything about reasons and consequences but leaves it for the reader to find out for himself/herself. Thus, it demands a great deal of the reader. The method may be compared to a scene in a play where things also have to be shown rather than told.

Example: Hemingway, "Indian Camp". Here Nick's father discovers that the husband of the Indian woman whose baby he has just delivered has killed himself. Notice the objectivity of the description:

"He pulled back the blanket from the Indian's head. His hand came away wet. He mounted on the edge of the lower bunk with the lamp in one hand and looked in. The Indian lay with his face toward the wall. His throat had been cut from ear to ear. The blood had flowed down into a pool where his body sagged the bunk. His head rested on his left arm. The open razor lay, edge up, in the blankets. "

c. The restricted third-person narrator represents a type of narrative between the first-person narrator and the omniscient narrator. The restricted third-person narrator may give background information (like the omniscient narrator), but at the same time the point of view is restricted to one character and his/her range of knowledge/experience (like first-person narrator).

Example: Bernard MacLaverty, Cal. The novel takes place in Northern Ireland. It describes how the conflict between Protestants and Catholics affect regular people, among them Cal, who represents the restricted third-person narrator. Here follows his description/experience of his neighborhood:

"As he turned into his street he felt the eyes on him. He looked at the ground in front of him and walked. The eyes would be at the curtains or behind a hedge as a man paused in his digging. He could not bear to look up and see the flutter of Union Jacks and now the red and white cross of the Ulster flag with its red hand. Of late there were more and more of these appearing in the estate. It was a dangerous sign that the Loyalists were getting angry. The flags should all have been down by now because the Twelfth of July was long past."

2. Characterization:

Characterization may be made through explicit description of the characters and implicitly through their dialogue, language, thoughts and behaviour.

Example: Explicit description: In John Steinbeck's novel, Of Mice and Men one of the main characters, George, is introduced in the following way:

"... The first man was small and quick, dark of face, with restless eyes and sharp strong features. Every part of him was defined: small, strong hands, slender arms, a thin and bony nose..."

Example: Implicit description: In Ernest Hemingway's short story, "Indian Camp", Nick's father, the doctor, has just performed a Caesarian on an Indian woman with a jack-knife and without using anaesthetics and is discussing the feat with Uncle George. The following short piece of dialogue gives us a clear impression of the different reactions of the two characters to the episode and gives us an insight into their personality, as well:

"That's one for the medical journal, George", he said. "Doing a Caesarian with a jack-knife and sewing it up with nine-foot, tapered gut leaders." Uncle George was standing against the wall, looking at his arm. "Oh, you're a great man, all right", he said".

Most often in serious literature the main characters will be portrayed in great detail and with a lot of nuances so that the reader gets full impression of the complexity of the characters. If he/she wants to achieve a certain effect (humorous, ironic or critical) the author may, however, choose to present his characters without these nuances, emphasizing only a few characteristic features. In such cases we talk about flat characters or (stereo)types.

Example: In E.M. Forster's short story "The Obelisk" the main characters, the schoolmaster Ernest and his wife Hilda are such flat characters/stereotypes. Forster introduces his two characters in this way:

"Ernest was an elementary schoolmaster, and very, very small; it was like marrying a doll, Hilda sometimes thought, and one with glass eyes too. She was larger herself: tall enough to make them look funny as they walked down the esplanade, but not tall enough to look dignified when she was alone. She cherished aspirations; none would have guessed it from her stumpy exterior."

When you read a text you have to be prepared to give a detailed description of the main characters, covering as many aspects as possible. When describing the main characters it may be a good idea to start with a. the concrete facts: appearance, family background, social class, marital status etc. After that you may move on to b. the inner life of the characters, i.e. their thoughts and feelings. Find out what their behavior and dialogue reveal about their thoughts and feelings. c. Development. Find out if the characters undergo a development in the course of the story.

When you characterize a person/personal relationships etc. it is important that you can actually base your characterization on the text (Documentation). Therefore be prepared to answer questions of the type, "How and where do we see this?"

3. Setting:

The setting encompasses everything that surrounds and affects the characters from cradle to grave. In describing and characterizing people and understanding their conflicts it is thus necessary to study the setting.

The setting includes

a) the physical surroundings,

b) social and economic factors/background and

c) the spiritual and emotional atmosphere.

Example (the physical surroundings, social and economic factors/background):

In the novel The Bonfire of the Vanities by Thomas Wolfe the protagonist, the successful and rich stock broker Sherman McCoy misses the right exit on his way from the airport la Guardia and ends up in the black ghetto, the Bronx, a totally alien and terrifying territory. The description of the Bronx and McCoy's experience of the place gives us both a clear impression the actual surroundings and of McCoy himself, who is clearly terrified living as he does in a completely different world:

"- astonishing. Utterly empty, a vast open terrain. Block after block- how many? - six? - eight? - a dozen?- entire blocks of the city without a building left standing. There were streets and curbing and sidewalks and light poles and nothing else. The eerie grid of a city was spread out before him, lit by the chemical yellow of the street lamps. Here and there were traces of rubble and slag. The earth looked like concrete, except it rolled down this... and up that way... the hills and dales of the Bronx...reduced to asphalt, concrete, and cinders...in a ghastly yellow glaring".

Example (the spiritual and emotional atmosphere): In the short story "The Story of an Hour" from 1899 by Kate Chopin the main character, Mrs. Mallard, experiences a shocking sense of relief and liberation as she is informed of her husband's death Mrs. Mallard is portrayed as a typical product of a well-intentioned, protective and oppressive middle-class marriage. With the (presumed)death of her husband she feels liberated from the kind but destructive confinement of middle-class marriage:

"There would be no one to live for her during those coming years; she would live for herself. There would be no powerful will bending hers in that blind persistence with which men and women believe they have a right to impose a private will upon a fellow-creature. A kind intention or a cruel intention made it seem no less a crime as she looked upon it in that brief moment of illumination."

When you describe the setting you must be prepared to document your description by reference to the text.

4. Theme:

When we talk about the theme of a text we refer to the basic idea of the text and the author's treatment of this particular idea. It is often quite difficult to identify and formulate precisely the theme in a given text.

Example: "The theme of H.C. Andersen's fairy tale "The Ugly Duckling" is the triumph of talent and natural gifts over adverse circumstances and the environment.

It is a good idea to study the title of a text closely. Often it contains a clue to the identification of the theme. Likewise, the ending of a text often has relevant information which may help you identify the theme.

5. Structure:

Structure is the selection and organization of the material to form a meaningful unit. Awareness of the structure of a text may help the reader to better understand the basic ideas of a text. There are many ways in which the author may choose to organize his/her material. Some of them are described below:

a. Chronological narrative leading up to a climax. In this type of text we are gradually introduced to the characters and the important events and conflicts. There is a slow build-up of tension which may then be released in the climax of the story.

Example: Isac Dinesen's (alias Karen Blixen) short story "The Young Man with the Carnation" may illustrate a narrative which has this slow and gradual opening. Before introducing the main character, Charlie, we get a description of the surroundings and background information about him:

"Three quarters of a century ago there lay in Antwerp, near the harbour, a small hotel named the Queen's Hotel. It was a neat, respectable place, where sea captains stayed with their wives. To this house there came, on a March evening, a young man, sunk in gloom. As he walked up from the harbour, to which he had come on a ship from England, he was, he felt, the loneliest being in the world. And there was no one to whom he could speak of his misery, for to the eyes of the world he must seem safe and fortunate, a young man to be envied by everyone. He was an author who had had a great success with his first book. The public had loved it; the critics had been at one in praising it; and he had made money on it after having been poor all his life..."

b. Abrupt opening (in medias res): This is a technique often used in short fiction. The author starts in the middle of things without previous introduction to the characters and the events. The text may even start with the climax. This type of opening may seem confusing to the reader. It has the effect, however, of alerting the reader and raising his/her curiosity.

Example: Bernard MacLaverty, Cal. In the novel Cal (mentioned earlier in connection with narrative technique) we are thrown right into the middle of things. We receive no background information about the character, not even his name and that he is identical with the main character, Cal.

"He stood at the back gateway of the abattoir, his hands thrust into his pockets, his stomach rigid with the ache of want Men in white coats and baseball caps whistled and shouted as they moved between the hanging carcasses. He couldn't see his father, yet he did not want to venture in. He knew the sweet warm nauseating smell of the place and he had had no breakfast."

c. Flash-backs: In texts starting in medias res background information will often be given the reader gradually to enable him/her to piece the events together. This background information may be provided in the form of flash-backs.

Again the novel Cal may serve as an example. From the beginning of the novel Cal is described as a sensitive, nervous and self-hating type. We sense that Cal is troubled by violent past events, but what those events are we do not know until half-way through the novel where Cal thinks back on and relives the episode which is haunting him and shaping and controlling his present.

"Tired of pacing, he lay down on the floor with his knees to his chest for warmth. He lay inert on broken glass, his eyes open to the night, and saw again the terrible thing he had done. It was almost a year ago to the day that he had called for Crilly in the van...."

d. Contrasts and parallels: An effective way of organizing material is the use of contrasts or parallels. The author uses contrasts and parallels to call attention to important aspects of the text.

Example: John Steinbeck, Of Mice and Men. In this novel the two principal characters, George and Lenny form a clear contrast. In the introduction Steinbeck emphasizes this contrast. However, he also stresses the point that the two opposites complement each other, forming parallels as they share the same lot.

"Both were dressed in denim trousers and in denim coats with brass buttons. Both wore black, shapeless hats and both carried tight blanket rolls slung over their shoulders. The first man was small and quick, dark of face, with restless eyes and sharp, strong features. Every part of him was defined: small, strong hands, slender arms, a thin and bony nose. Behind him walked his opposite, a huge man, shapeless of face, with large, pale eyes, with wide, sloping shoulders: and he walked heavily dragging his feet a little, the way a bear drags his paws. His arms did not swing at his sides, but hung loosely and only moved because the heavy hands were pendula."

6. Tone and mood: The tone of a text is the emotional attitude of the author. The tone is created in a variety of ways: through the choice of words, emphasis on certain words, the rhythm and length of sentences etc.

Example: Edgar Allan Poe, "The Tell-Tale Heart". In this short story the narrator has killed a friendly, old man- he did not like his staring eye-cut up the body, and hidden the pieces under the floorboards. In the following passage the author establishes a tone of frantic madness as the narrator is haunted by the dump sound of the dead man's beating heart:

"I paced the floor to and fro with heavy strides, as if excited to fury by the observation of the men- but the noise steadily increased. Oh, God! what could I do? I foamed- I raved- I swore! I swung the chair upon which I had been sitting, and grated it upon the boards, but the noise arose over all and continually increased: It grew louder-louder-louder! "

The mood, on the other hand, is the feeling a text evokes in the reader. Often the tone and the mood of a text are identical. It need not be the case, however.

Example: In the text "A Modest Proposal" by the satirist Jonathan Swift the narrator proposes in a calm, reasonable and business like way to kill Irish infants before the age of one year. They would make excellent food and their parents can't afford to feed and raise them anyway.

"I have been assured by a very knowing American of my acquaintance in London, that a young healthy child well nursed is a most delicious, nourishing and wholesome food, whether stewed, roasted, baked, or boiled; and I make no doubt that it will equally serve in a fricassee or a ragout."

As you can see, the tone is calm and detached. The mood it evokes in the reader, however, is one of horror and disgust at the lack of compassion.

7. Language, images and symbols:

The use of language in a given text is the author's conscious choice. Through the language / the choice of words he/she gives the reader important information about the characters and situations. It is therefore important that the reader pays close attention to the language used in a text. Particularly the use of images and symbols is an important stylistic device. Complex ideas and emotional states may be captured in a concrete image without losing their complexity and multiplicity of meaning.

Example: In the novel Lord of the Flies, e.g. the author William Golding consciously uses imagery and symbols to represent the important ideas of the novel. Lord of the Flies tells the story of a group of young boys who end up on a desert island. It describes the gradual disintegration of the group and the transformation of the boys into savages as they are no longer subjected to the rules of civilization. The idea of civilization, order, and rationality is represented by a conch (konkylie), which the boys use in the beginning of the novel to call meetings where they organize and discuss their situation. Towards the end of the novel where total disintegration has set in, the conch is destroyed.

Tragedy

In general, tragedy involves the ruin of the leading characters.

To the Greeks, it meant the destruction of some noble person through fate.

To the Elizabethans, it meant in the first place death and in the second place the destruction of some noble person through a flaw (weakness) in his character.

Modern tragedy often deals with the downfall of ordinary people fighting against the absurd conditions of modern life.

Literary Terms (Drama)

http://www.lausd.k12.ca.us/Lincoln_HS/Burleson/Lessons/Drama.htm