1、songcomposition. For the elements by which they imitate are two (verbal expression and songcomposition), the manner in which they imitate is one (visual adornment), the things they imitate are three (plot, characters, thought), and there is nothing more beyond these. 2. What is Plot under the pens o
2、f modern novelists and storytellers? And how to understand “Plot” in a story? (“”ppt: The queen died, no one knew why, until it was discovered that it was through grief at the death of the king.P. 6 It suspends the time-sequence, it moves as far away from the story as its limitations will allow.)The
3、 story and the character alone can not make a novel ye. To make a novel, a plot is prerequisite. A look at the example suggested by E.M. Forster will help to distinguish between the story and the plot. “The king died and then the queen died” is not a plot, but a story. If we make it “The king died a
4、nd then the queen died of grief, we have a plot. This causal phrase “of grief” indicates our interpretation and thus arrangement of the happenings. In the world of reality events take place one after another in the natural temporal order, but in the world of fiction it is the novelists design that o
5、ne particular event occur after another particular event. The very word “plot” implies the novelists rebellion against the natural law and his endeavor to make meanings out of the happenings that may otherwise be meaningless. “The happenings” may or may not be real happenings.(So what plot is -) A p
6、lot is a particular arrangement of happenings in a novel that is aimed at revealing their causal relationships or at conveying the novelists ideas. A plot is sometimes called a story line. The most important of the traditional plot is that it should be a complete or unified action, that is, somethin
7、g with a beginning, a middle, and an end.3. The dramatic situation in a story.4. The three parts of a plot: a beginning (exposition), a middle (suspense or a series of suspense .foreshadowing crisis a moment of high tension), and an end(a climax, the moment of greatest tensionthe conclusionfalling a
8、ction, resolution or denouement).Plot a beginning a middle an end exposition some other events climax (the moment(suspense, a series of suspense, of greatest tension,foreshadowing, crisis) the conclusion-fallingaction, resolution or denouement)II. Read the stories of Rip Van Winkle(Washington Irving
9、) and David Swan (Nathaniel Hawthorne)III. Questions: (Finish reading the two stories and point out the plots of the two stories, the descriptive details, the exposition, characters)Rip Van Winkle1. Descriptive details: the plot of the story?2. What part of the story seems like the exposition? 3. Wh
10、ere does the dramatic conflict? 4. What is the climax of the story?David Swan5. the plot of the story? 6. How fully does the author draw the characters in the story? (Character traits are the qualities of a characters personality. They are revealed through a characters actions and words and through
11、description).7. More works to do: something about the writers of the two stories.Chapter Two CharacterIn the introduction we have said that fiction is an image of people in action, moving towards an undeclared end. Thus character is always involved in fiction, even in the story of the simplest actio
12、n. Sometimes character is at the center of our interest because in character we may see many facets of the people we meet in our daily life and even of ourselves. Fictional character is always character in action and the character gets into action because it is caught in a situation of conflict and
13、he/she is always provided with motivation: he/she has sufficient reasons to act or behave as he /she does. The character is doing something and the reader while reading fiction wants to know the “why” as well as the “what” of the affairs. (Sometimes a characters motive for an action is not explained
14、 on acceptable grounds, for example, the villain in Adgar Allan Poestory “The Tell-Tale Heart,” and thus the reader feels cheated. In this case, the writer of detective fiction who makes the criminal a mere lunatic has cheated the reader by avoiding the problem of motive.) And generally, the action
15、itself is humanly significant and it ends usually in a shift in or clarification of human values, as displayed in John Updikes “A & P,” and the motivation of a character in a storyone of the answers to the question “why”is of fundamental importance.I. What is Character?Closely related with the story
16、 is the character. Henry James said, “What is character but the determination of incident? What is incident but the illustration of character?” (The Art of Fiction”) When we read a novel, we read about our fellow beings, and that is one of the motives in reading at all. The “fellow beings” in the no
17、vel is termed characters. By “fellow beings” is meant not only “human beings” but also “other beings,” such as animals. George Orwell uses animals to represent human beings in his novel Animal Farm. Lewis Carrol creates many lovely animals in his Alices Adventures in Wonderland that appeal to both c
18、hildren and adults.Orwell does not intend to convince the reader that animals can speak human language or that he is a translator between animals and humans. No sensible reader, after reading Orwells Animal Farm, would go to the pigsty to look for a talking boar. This proves the agreed-on fictionali
19、ty of characters in novels. So broadly, a character is an invented personality to resemble but never to equal a real person in life. It is not difficult to see that characters in novels resemble people in real life in many ways. They have names used in the same way ours are used, they have hatred an
20、d love, and they have desires and fears. Above all, they act the way we act or the way we can understand (like or dislike).But we must bear in mind that the characters are not real persons, but merely inventions, however ingenious. Compare the physical life and spiritual life of the characters and o
21、urs. We have to answer the natures call several times a day, but characters seldom do this, even in the most realistic or naturalistic novels. We have to live our life hour by hour and day by day, but characters never do this. They choose to live some time more fully than others, and are able to ski
22、p over periods on ten months or twenty years without seeming weird, a feat which we can never attempt. In our life, our minds are a gray matter even to scientists. We can not know what is going on in others mind. But in novels, the minds of the characters are open or can be made open to the reader i
23、f the novelist so chooses. The reader does not only see their clothes, but also see their minds. One character may be enemy to other characters, but he is friend to the reader, before whom he can think aloud, to borrow Emersons words. Characters do not live, but act. When we watch actors speak aloud
24、 to themselves on the stage as if they were alone, we know they are acting and they are different from what they represent in real life. The characters in novels exist in a similar manner.II. Kinds of CharactersUsually, a novel has more than one character. They interact with each other and make up t
25、he story. But they are not equally important or have the same function to the novelist. By their roles in the novel, the characters can be grouped as heroes, main characters and minor characters, and foils.The character on whom a novel is called the hero or heroine when it is a female character. The
26、 word “hero” originally refers to a man, in mythology and legend, often of divine ancestry, who is endowed with great courage and strength, celebrated for his hold exploits, and favored by the gods. In the novel, the word “hero” is freed of such noble requirements and any central characters can be l
27、abeled as heroes. Jonathan Wild is the hero in the novel of the same name by Henry Fielding, though he is a notorious highwayman. Some critics, annoyed by the connotation of “hero,” prefer the word “protagonist,” which sounds neutral. The enemy or rival of the protagonist is called “antagonist.”The
28、main or major characters are those in close and dynamic relation with the hero or heroine. Close relation does not mean good relation. Pablo in For Whom the Bell Tolls is constantly finding trouble with the hero Jordan, yet he is a main character as his wife Pilar is. Minor characters are those in r
29、emote and static relation with the hero. It is wrong to think that minor characters are all unimportant. In some novels, one or some of the minor characters may serve a critical role, structurally or interpretationally.Foil characters are ones that help enhance the intensity of the hero by strengthe
30、ning or contrasting. They may be main characters or minor characters. In a word, they serve as foils to the hero or heroine. Cohn in The Sun Also Rises is a good example. He is one of the main characters. Like Jake, he is also “lost,” trying vainly to escape the past by courting women and drinking.
31、But during their stay in Spain, Cohn displays qualities in contrast to those cherished by Jake, which makes Jake realize his own problems and finally find a solution, though temporarily. Cohn works mainly by contrast. Wilson in The Great Gatsby works by presenting. Gatsby lost his lover to Tom and W
32、ilson lost his wife to Tom. By presenting Wilsons case the novelist intends to point out the profound cause of Gatsbys tragedy. Dr. Watson in the stories of Sherlock Holmes serves as a foil to the hero, rendering the detective smarter than he would otherwise appear to the reader.By the degree of the
33、ir development, characters can be grouped as round characters and flat characters. This division is proposed by E.M Forster. Round characters are fully developed while flat characters are not. Or we can say that round characters grow while flat characters do not. Usually the reader is allowed access
34、 to the inner life of the round character and permitted to learn about many sides of the round character. The flat character is a “closed” character to whose inner thoughts the reader is denied access. Usually one side of the flat character is shown in the novel. Most heroes are round characters who
35、 grow emotionally or spiritually.Chapter Three ThemeAristotle in Poetics lists six basic elements of tragedy. Melody (song) and diction (language) fall in the general category of style, and spectacle is relevant to setting in our discussion of fiction. The other three aspects are mythos or plot, eth
36、os or character, and dianoia, which we generally translate into “thought” in English. According to Aristotle, plot is the “soul” or shaping principle or fiction, and characters exist primarily as functions of the plot. In most of the stories, plot plays the role of principal structure of the story.
37、But, as Northrop Frye points out, besides the internal fiction of the character and his/her society, there is an external fiction consisting of a relation between the writer and the writers society. We indeed have literary works by the likes of Shakespeare and Homer in which artistry is completely a
38、bsorbed in their internal characters and we can hardly perceive the existence of the author. However, as soon as the authors personality appears on the horizon, a relation with the reader is established, and sometimes there seems no story at all apart from what the author is conveying to his/her rea
39、der. In this case, the primary interest in dianoia, the idea or thought that reader gets from the writer, which in modern criticism we generally call “theme”.I. What Is Theme?One of the safest comments to make about novels is on the theme. Everyone is entitled to extract a theme based upon his under
40、standing of the novel. Theme may be the most democratic elements in literature, because its definition is the least restrictive. The theme of a novel is its controlling idea or its central insight. Being an idea or an insight, the theme should be abstract and it should generalize about life. Labeled
41、 as controlling or central, the theme should be capable of unifying the whole novel. So the theme of a story, then, is whatever general idea or insight the entire story reveals. II. Clarification about ThemeCommon as it is, theme suffers some misunderstandings. One misconception about theme is that
42、each novel has a theme or themes, or theme is important to all novels. In fact, some novels, interesting ones though, do not provide any insight into life. For example, many novels of ratiocination and novels of horror. These novels are aimed at entertaining the reader, not at improving his understa
43、nding of life. They may sometimes touch upon the human nature or social problems, but these issues are only used to push the plot forward and they are not mentioned for their own value. Theme exists only in the novel that seriously attempts to reflect life faithfully or intends to reveal truth about
44、 life, or in the novels that are based on ideas or theories of life. (for example, novels of ideas).Another misconception about theme is that the theme is largely what the novel is. Some people discard the novel when they think that they have got the theme. It should be made clear that the novel is
45、not written to convey an idea but to convey an idea artistically. The novel is a work of art whereas the theme is only an abstract idea. An analogy from daily life may help clarify this question. People all need vitamins and get them from various kinds of vegetables and fruits. Only those with defic
46、iency of one kind or another have to take vitamin pills to get the required amount. The difference between the theme and the novel is much like that between the vitamins and the vegetables. The reader sometimes finds that the theme of a novel is similar to or even the same as what he has already kno
47、wn about life and that he is still fascinated by the novel. Theme appeals solely to the intellectual level of reading while the novel as a whole mainly appeals to the emotional level.Another pitfall concerning the theme is to confuse a theme with moral or lesson. Usually, a moral or a lesson is the
48、advice stated or implied in a parable or fable. It is something of a rule by which one can regulate his behavior. For example, “Be kind to your neighbors,” or “Honesty is the best policy.” But a theme is more complicated than this as a novel is to enhance ones awareness of life rather than simply to
49、 tell him how to behave.A novel is a complicated matter and different readers may have different interpretations of the same novel, so it is incorrect to presume that one novel has only one theme. In some cases, there are several subthemes to the main theme. In reality, some novels are appreciated for their thematic ambiguity. For example, Moby Dick can be interpreted in more ways than one.Finally
