2. Questions
• What are you reading now?
• What did you use to read as a teenager?
• What is THE text that you would love to teach in a
literature class?
3. What is Prose
• Prose is writing that resembles everyday speech.
(Wiki)
• books, newspapers, magazines, encyclopedias,
broadcast media, letters, history, philosophy,
biography, and many other forms of communication
4. What is the Novel?
• narrative (i.e. story)
• fiction (vs fact)
• yet "realistic" (vs "fantastic")
• prose (vs poetry)
• long (vs the short story)
5. Elements of Prose
• Plot
• Characterisation
• Theme
• Setting
• Narration/POV
• Irony
• Imagery
Read “Analyzing Fiction” Handout (avail on BB)
6. Genre
• Genre = Type
– Tragedy vs Comedy
– Historical / Biography / Documentary
– Adventure / Action / Military / Western / Crime / Mystery
– Fantasy / Sci-fi / Horror /
– Romance / Comedy
• Is the concept of genre obsolete?
7. Setting
• Place, time, social environment,
• Mood and atmosphere
• When and where is the story set?
• Relationship between place and character and
theme
8. Character
• What are the facts concerning a person?
• Physical descriptions, dress, dialogue, thoughts and
emotions, actions, relationships, associations
• What is the person like? What adjectives would you use
to describe him/her?
• Why do you think he/she is like that? Cite specific
examples.
• Are there any contradictions in the character? Is he/she
interesting? Does the character do what he says he will?
• Imagine this character really existed. Would you like the
person? Why?
9. Character
• Is he a flat or round character?
• What role does he/she play? How do the characters
contribute to the theme? What finally happens to them?
• How do we learn what the character is like?
by his actions / by his speech / by his thoughts
by what other people say/think of them
• What does this person represent in the story? What role does
he/she play in the story (in other words, why is he/she
there?)? How would the story change without this character?
• How does this character compare with others like him/her?
• Do the characters develop or do they remain static?
10. Your Turn
• Write a singles ad for yourself, or for some well-
known fictional character
11. Theme
• What issues are the writer interested in?
(e.g. love, death, revenge, hope, evil, war, youth)
• How does the writer approach these issues?
12. Plot
• Plot/Narrative = Pattern of causal events
• Style = How a story is told
• Structure = How a story is organised
• What is the story about?
• When and where is the story set?
• Is there a conflict in the plot? How is it resolved?
• How is the plot structured?
13. • SOW is often not prescriptive
– It is a guide to ensure everybody knows what the students
are required to know by the end of the term – how you
get there is often left to the individual tutor in his/her
respective classes.
14. Narrative / POV
• Omniscient
• Limited Omniscient
• 2nd
Person
• 1st
Person
• Stream of Consciousness
15. Narrative / POV
1st
Person
• Narrator is character
• More personal
• Identify with character
• Immediate / engaging
• Things from only one POV
• Subjectivity of narrator
3rd
Person
• Implied narrator outside
text who knows all
• More distant
• Less moving
• Perspective of different
characters
• Reader makes own
judgement
16. Imagery
• MOTIFS
– Is there anything that recurs to create a pattern?
– How do the motifs contribute to character and theme?
– What do these motifs represent?
17. Style
• How does the author tell the story?
• What kind of language is used?
• Why does the author tell the story in this way?
20. Irony
• Irony is not sarcasm (only one answer) or ambiguity
(when there are two answers)
• Irony = Discrepancy or Incongruity
• Irony = what is and what seems to be
• Irony = what is said/done and what is truly meant
• Irony = what is expected to happen and what
actually happens
• Dramatic irony/Situational irony/verbal irony/tragic
irony
21. Your Turn (if there is time)
• Taximan’s Story
• Little Red Riding Hood
22. How do I respond?
• Do you like the story?
• Which part of the story do you like best? Do you find
anything interesting or unusual? Why?
• How does the story make you feel?
• Do you think there is a hidden meaning behind the
text? Are there any signs I need to read?
• Why do I respond the way I do?
23.
24. For next Wednesday:
• Think of a novel that you would like to teach.
– If you can, please bring a copy of the novel to class
– Think of a passage that you would like to use for a context
passage for the exams and print the extract out.
