1、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 their development, characters can be grouped as round
2、 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 to the inner life of the round character and perm
3、itted 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 grow emotionally or spiritually.Chapter Three The
4、meAristotle 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, ethos or character, and dianoia, which we generally t
5、ranslate 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. But, as Northrop Frye points out, besides the inte
6、rnal 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 absorbed in their internal characters and we can ha
7、rdly 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 reader. In this case, the primary interest in dianoia
8、, 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 understanding of the novel. Theme may be the most democ
9、ratic 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 as controlling or central, the theme should be ca
10、pable 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 each novel has a theme or themes, or theme is impo
11、rtant 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 understanding of life. They may sometimes touch upon the h
12、uman 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 life, or in the novels that are based on ideas or
13、 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 not written to convey an idea but to convey an ide
14、a 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 deficiency of one kind or another have to take vitamin
15、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 known about life and that he is still fascinated by t
16、he 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 advice stated or implied in a parable or fable. It
17、 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 tell him how to behave.A novel is a complicated m
18、atter 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 Dic
19、k can be interpreted in more ways than one.Finally, the theme is not to be confused with the subject. The theme is an idea while the subject is a matter or an affair. “Love is invincible” may be a theme, but “love” is only a subject. A subject may be universal. The subjects of The Scarlet Letter, Th
20、e Great Gatsby, and Women in Love are all “love.” But these novels have different themes. A theme is particular to its novel, though there are many similar themes to be found in other novels.III. Five Requirements for Stating a ThemeThe statement of a theme may be brief or long. And there are differ
21、ent ways to express oneand the same theme. But it should meet the following requirements.A theme must be expressed in the form of a statement with a subject and a predicate. For example, “Love of ones country often inspires heroic self-sacrifice.” If a theme is expressed in the form of a phrase, the
22、n the phrase must be convertible to sentence form. One can say that the theme of a novel is “futility of envy.” The phrase can be changed to “envy is futile.” When one chooses to state a theme in the phrase form, he must be very careful about its convertibility to sentence form. For instance ,the ph
23、rase “selfless maternal love” does not always mean that “maternal love is selfless.”The theme is generalization about life based on the novel, and the statement of theme should be true also of other people or life situations. Therefore, names of characters and places should not be mentioned, for the
24、y suggest specific things and invite limitations. So in thematic discussion of Wuthering Heights, one may mention “peoples psychology of revenge,” but not “Heathcliffs.”Though a theme is a generalization, over-generalization should be avoided. Since a theme is extracted from a particular novel (a pa
25、rticular event), it may not be applicable to all situations. So words like “always,” “never,” “all,” and “every” should be avoided. Instead, one should use words like “some,” “sometimes,” and “may.” When making a generalization, one should strictly keep to what is actually in the novel and not smugg
26、le into it assumptions supplied from his past experience.Since theme is the central and unifying idea of the novel, it must account for all the major details and must not be contradicted by an details in the novel.Since a theme is different from a moral or a lesson, one should avoid reducing a theme
27、 to a clich or platitude like “Beauty is only skin-deep.” If one crams every new experience into an old formula, he loses the opportunity of new perception provided by reading novels.IV. Where to Look for the ThemeThe novelist may state or imply the theme. He uses every possible method to convey the
28、 theme. Though the theme is based upon the whole novel, practically, we can specify some important areas in which to look for the theme.How the novel is entitled. The title is the name of the novel and in many cases (almost all cases) the novelist intends it to tell something important about the nov
29、el. Sometimes the central theme of the novel is present in the title. For example, Pride and Prejudice is about Darcys pride and Elizabeth Bennets prejudice. Main Street is about the life of middle-class people in a Midwestern town. Think what the title of For Whom the Bell Tolls tells about its the
30、me, and As I lay Dying.How the novelist shows his interest. If the novelist is interested in something, he would allow more space to it, describing or narrating in great detail. Yet, sometimes he emphasizes it by leaving it out, as in the case of Ernest Hemingway. The point concerned here is that wh
31、y the novelist gives more attention to this particular character, since or event but not others.How the novelist deals with a common subject. Often the novelist has to include in his work some common subjects, but if he treats the common subjects in an uncommon way, it shows that he is trying to con
32、vey something new or important in the novel. Maybe it is the theme that demands him to do so.Important symbols. Symbols are loaded with important meanings. So if a symbol appears repeatedly or at important moments, it may point to the theme of the novel. A good example is the letter “A” in The Scarl
33、et Letter.Important speeches. Characters talk and in their talk are revealed their judgments of the other characters or event. The characters judgments may give important clues to the theme.V. Obvious and unobvious themeObvious theme:The theme of a story, since we know, is whatever general idea or i
34、nsight the entire story reveals. In some stories, the theme is rather obvious. For example, in Aesops fable about the council of the mice that cannot decide who will bell the cat, the theme is stated in the moral at the end: “It is easier to propose a thing than to carry it out.” In some novels, the
35、 title may offer a suggestion about the main theme. For example, Jane Austens Pride and Prejudice is named after its theme, and the whole story unfolds itself around that theme. In some novels, the title is not so named but the plot exists primarily to illustrate the theme and it is not very difficu
36、lt for us to infer what it is. For example, Uncle Toms Cabin by H.B.Stowe and The Grapes of Wrath by John Steinbeck voice the themes of slavery and migratory labor respectively. The title of The Grapes of Wrath comes from a line in an extremely famous Civil War song, “The Battle Hymn of the Republic
37、.” The line is, “He is trampling out the vintage where the Grapes of wrath are stored,” which means “an unjust or oppressive situation, action or policy that may inflame desire for vengeance: an explosive condition.” The song was written by a famous and influential social activist, Julia Ward Howe.
38、Unobvious theme: But in most literary works of fiction, the theme is seldom so obvious. That is, generally a theme is not a moral nor a message, neither is it clearly conveyed in the title. When we finish reading a finely wrought story, it is easier to sum up the plotto say what happensthan to descr
39、ibe the main idea. To say of James Joyces “Araby” that it is about a boy who goes to a bazaar to buy a gift for a young woman but arrives too late is to summarize plot, not theme. In many fine short stories, theme is the center, the moving force, the principle of unity. Clearly, such a theme is some
40、thing more than the characters and events of the story. Most of the short stories challenge an easy-come theme. In Hemingways “A Clean, Well-Lighted Place,” as observed by Kennedy and Gioia, the events are rather simplea young waiter manages to get rid of the old man from the caf and the older waite
41、r stops at a coffee bar on his way homebut while the events themselves seem relatively slight, the story as a whole is full of meaning. For a deep understanding of the meaning, we have to look to other elements of the story besides what happens in it: narrative, symbols, tone, the dialogue between t
42、he two waiters, the monologue of the older waiter, etc. Evidently the author intends us to pay more attention to the thoughts and feelings of the older waiter, the character whose words echo the authors voice. One try on the theme may be: “The older waiter understands the old man and sympathizes wit
43、h his need for a clean, well-lighted place.” But here we are still talking about what happens in the story, though we are not summing up the plot. A theme is usually stated in general words. Another try sounds like this: “Solitary people need a orderly place where they can drink with dignity.” That
44、is a little better. We have indicated that Hemingways story is more than merely about an old man and two waiters. We remember that at the end the story is entirely confined to the older waiters thoughts and perceptions. How do we understand his mediation on “nada,” nothingness, which bears so much e
45、mphasis? No good statement of the theme of the story can leave it out. Then we have still another try: “Solitary people need a place of refuge from their terrible awareness that their life (or perhaps, human life) is essentially meaningless.” Neither this nor any other statement of the storys theme
46、is unarguably appropriate, but the statement at least touches one primary idea that Hemingway seems to be driving at. After we read “A Clean, Well-Lighted Place,” we feel that there is such a theme, a unifying vision, even though we cannot reduce it to a tag and we may still vary in our opinion abou
47、t, and statement of, the theme. Moral inferences drawn from most stories: Moral inferences may be drawn from most stories, no doubt, even when an author does not intend his/her story to be read this way. In “A Clean, Well-Lighted Place”, we feel that Hemingway is indirectly giving us advice for prop
48、erly regarding and sympathizing the lonely, the uncertain, and the old. But obviously the story does not set forth a lesson that we are supposed to put into practice. We can say for sure that “A Clean, Well-Lighted Place” contains several themes and other statements could be made to take in Hemingwa
49、ys view of love, of communication between people, of dignity. Great stories, like great symphonies, frequently have more than one theme. When we say that the title of Pride and Prejudice conveys the theme of the novel or that Uncle Toms Cabin and The Grapes of Wrath treat the themes of slavery and migratory labor respectively, this is to use theme in a larger and more abstract sense than it is in our discussion of平罗县陶乐水土保持小流域综合治理项目可行性研究报告石嘴山市水利勘测设计院有限公司二O一一年十二
