ENG15 Midterm Notes PDF

ELEMENTS AND CHARACTERISTICS OF ❖ Physical appearance? FICTION ❖ Thoughts and feelings? ❖ Interaction – the way they act towards other...

ELEMENTS AND CHARACTERISTICS OF ❖ Physical appearance? FICTION ❖ Thoughts and feelings? ❖ Interaction – the way they act towards other characters? STORY ELEMENTS ❖ Are they static characters who do not change? ✓ Setting ❖ Do they develop by the end of the story? ✓ Characters ❖ What type of characters are they? ✓ Plot ❖ What qualities stand out? ✓ Point of View ❖ Are they stereotypes? ✓ Theme ❖ Are the characters believable? SETTING PLOT ▪ Setting is the “where and when” of a story. ▪ Plot is the organized pattern or sequence of events ▪ It is the time and place during which the story takes that make up a story. place. ▪ Plot is the literary element that describes the structure of a story How to Analyze Setting ▪ It shows the arrangement of events and actions ❖ What aspects make up the setting? within a story. ❖ What role does setting play in the story? Plot Structure ❖ Is it an important part of the plot or theme? Or is it just a backdrop against which the action takes place?  Exposition - introduction; characters, setting and ❖ Study the time period which is also part of the setting conflict (problem) are introduced ❖ When was the story written?  Rising action- events that occur as result of central ▪ Does it take place in the present, the past, or the conflict future?  Climax- highest point of interest or suspense of a ▪ How does the time period affect the language, story atmosphere or social circumstances of the  Falling action- tension eases; events show the results novel? of how the main character begins to resolve the conflict  Resolution- loose ends are tied up; the conflict is CHARACTERS solved ▪ The person, animals, and things participating in a Special Techniques story ▪ The protagonist is the main character of the story, ✓ Suspense- excitement, tension, curiosity the one with whom the reader identifies. This person ✓ Foreshadowing- hint or clue about what will happen is not necessarily “good”. in story ▪ The antagonist is the force in opposition of the ✓ Flashback- interrupts the normal sequence of events protagonist; this person may not be “bad” or “evil”, to tell about something that happened in the past but he/she opposes the protagonist in a significant ✓ Symbolism– use of specific objects or images to way represent ideas ▪ Major characters are characters who play major role ✓ Personification– giving human qualities to inanimate in the story (including protagonists and antagonists) objects ▪ Minor characters are characters whose existence is ✓ Surprise ending - conclusion that reader does not to support the story and have minor role. expect How to Analyze Characters CONFLICT ❖ Through dialogue? ❖ By the way they speak? ▪ Conflict is the dramatic struggle between two forces ❖ How is the theme expressed? in a story. Without conflict, there is no plot. ❖ Are any elements repeated and therefore suggest a Character vs. character theme? Character vs. society ❖ Is there more than one theme? Character vs. nature Character vs. fate CHARACTERISTICS OF FICTION Character vs. self FICTION IS SUBJECTIVE How to Analyze Conflicts? ▪ Fiction is, by definition, subjective. ❖ How would you describe the main conflict? ▪ “A novel, story, drama, or poem is the expression of ❖ Is it an internal conflict within the character? an author's imagination. The characters and ❖ Is it an external conflict caused by the surroundings situations are "made up." Readers expect fiction to or environment the main character finds reflect the real world; they do not expect it to portray himself/herself in? the real world.” FICTION IS EVOCATIVE: IMAGES AND SYMBOLS POINT OF VIEW ▪ Fiction evokes ideas and feelings indirectly by ▪ First-person point of view: a character from the triggering emotional responses and mental pictures. story is telling the story; uses the pronouns “I” and ▪ Fiction commonly communicates through images and “me” symbols. ▪ Third-person point of view: an outside narrator is telling the story; uses the pronouns “he”, “she”, “they”. COMMERCIAL FICTION Two types of third-person POV: ▪ Intended solely to entertain ▪ Legal thrillers, romance novels 1. Third-person limited: The narrator knows the ▪ Escapist thoughts and feelings of only ONE character in a ▪ Formulaic story. 2. Third-person omniscient: The narrator knows the thoughts and feeling of ALL the characters in LITERARY FICTION a story ▪ Written with serious artistic intentions by someone who hopes to enable readers to broaden THEME understanding of life and to empathize with others ▪ The theme is the central, general message, the main ▪ Literary writers are more like explorers who take us idea, the controlling topic about life or people the out into the midst of life, show us the props and author wants to get across through a literary work mirrors and seek to dispel the illusions ▪ To discover the theme of a story, think big. What big message is the author trying to say about the world in which we live? ▪ What is this story telling me about how life works, or how people behave? ▪ The practical lesson (moral) that we learn from a story after we read it. The lesson that teaches us what to do or how to behave after you have learned something from a story or something that has happened to you. How to Analyze Theme?  INTRODUCTION TO CONTEMPORARY ▪ Contemporary literature uses avant-garde LITERATURE narrative resources MAGICAL REALISM CONTEMPORARY LITERATURE It includes all the literary manifestations that have taken ▪ Represents the breakthrough in 20th century contemporary literature. This depicts the real place since postmodernity. It is defined by a period but also by its very particular style. Most academics call world as having an undercurrent of magic or fantasy. contemporary literature all literary production after the Second World War, in the 1940s. THE PRESSING ISSUES This is related to the era of computers, robotics, mobile phones, and globalization, among others. ▪ Most of the themes of contemporary literature are related to the overwhelming problems of the real Some works and some writers could be considered world now, such as globalization, race and gender, contemporary if it shares stylistic, artistic or thematic inequality, climate and environment, wars and qualities of the present. terrorism. INFLUENCE OF WORLD WAR II ORIGIN ▪ The works of contemporary literature tend to be 1940-1990 influenced by the prosperous lifestyle that - Beginning of a new society. followed World War II. - Technological Innovations - New genres of literature FICTION AND NON-FICTION - Literature with Modernism - Description of hard realities SUPERIMPOSED 1990- Present ▪ In contemporary literature the distinction - Globalization between fiction and nonfiction can be blurred; - Wars, natural disasters and a growing population this is known as crosses. - New contexts - Metric and the rhyme in poetry The Notebook is a contemporary love story set in the pre- and post-World War II era. Noah and Allie spend a wonderful summer together, but her family and the CHARACTERISTICS OF CONTEMPORARY STYLE socioeconomic realities of the time prevent them from being together. ✓ Reality-based stories ✓ Believable story-line, sometimes portraying a harsher reality or degradation of society GENRES ✓ Current, modern setting ✓ “Well-defined, realistic, highly developed” and CLASSIC FICTION strong character (s). Made up of stories, novels, plays, poems, and films. ✓ Well-structured Everything is imaginary but it is presented as a mirror ✓ Writing is “more character driven than plot driven that reflects life and human experience. Contains characters that behave in the way that most PERSONAL POINT OF VIEW readers would. ▪ The works of contemporary literature reflect the Lord of the Rings (William Golding) social and political views of their authors. - an allegory novel that tells the story of a group of INNOVATIVE NARRATIVE RESOURCES young boys stranded alone on an island and  developing into savagery as they begin to lose Lieutenant Blandford remembered one night in their innocence and civilization. particular, the worst of the fighting, when his plane had been caught in the midst of a pack of Zeros. He had seen LITERATURE OF GHOST WRITERS the grinning face of one of the enemy pilots. A surprising number of successful books are written by In one of his letters, he had confessed to her that he ghost writers, but there are also ghost novels. often felt fear, and only a few days before this battle, he had received her answer: "Of course you fear...all brave - Auguste Maquet men do. Didn't King David know fear? That's why he - Alexander Dumas wrote the 23rd Psalm. Next time you doubt yourself, I Auguste Maquet—the ghostwriter who was responsible want you to hear my voice reciting to you: 'Yea, though I for much of the actual text of the novel—as Dumas walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I shall himself, The Count of Monte Cristo has become the fear no evil, for Thou art with me.'" And he had archetypal revenge story for all works that have remembered; he had heard her imagined voice, and it followed. had renewed his strength and skill. He was going to hear her voice now. Four minutes to six. GRAPHIC NOVELS A girl passed closer to him, and Lt. Blandford started. She Usually interpreted as cartoons with a long narrative for was wearing a flower, but it was not the little red rose a mature audience, published in hard cover or rustic and they had agreed upon. Besides, this girl was only about solid bookstores, with serious literary themes and 18, and Hollis Meynell had told him she was 30. "What of sophisticated works of art. it?" he had answered, "I'm 32." He was 29. His mind went back to that book - the book the Lord LITERATURE FOR CHILDREN Himself must have put into his hands out of the hundreds The last 20 years have seen a flowering of writing for of Army library books sent to the Florida training camp. children. Of Human Bondage, it was; and throughout the book were notes in a woman's writing. He had always hated a. Science fiction that writing-in-habit, but these remarks were different. Intertwined with technological progress of the world. He had never believed that a woman could see into a man's heart so tenderly, so understandingly. Her name b. Blog literature was on the bookplate: Hollis Meynell. He had got hold of Blogs (online magazine of individual or joint a New York City telephone book and found her address. authorship) have become a new means to create a He had written, she had answered. Next day he had been literary work. shipped out, but they had gone on writing. For thirteen months she had faithfully replied. When his APPOINTMENT WITH LOVE letters did not arrive, she wrote anyway, and now he S. I. KISHORE believed he loved her, and she loved him. But she had Six minutes to six, said the clock over the information refused all his pleas to send him her photograph. She had booth in New York's Grand Central Station. The tall young explained: "If your feelings for me had no reality, what I Army officer lifted his sunburned face and narrowed his look like won't matter. Suppose I am beautiful. I'd always eyes to note the exact time. His heart was pounding with be haunted that you had been taking a chance on just a beat that choked him. In six minutes he would see the that, and that kind of love would disgust me. Suppose woman who had filled such a special place in his life for that I'm plain, (and you must admit that this is more the past 18 months, the woman he had never seen yet likely), then I'd always fear that you were only going on whose words had sustained him unfailingly. writing because you were lonely and had no one else. No, don't ask for my picture. When you come to New York, He placed himself as close as he could to the information you shall see me and then you shall make your own booth, just beyond the ring of people besieging the decision." clerks... One minute to six - Lieutenant Blandford's heart leaped CONTEMPORARY DRAMA higher than his plane had ever done. DRAMA A young woman was coming toward him. Her figure was a mode of fictional representation through dialogue and long and slim; her blond hair lay back in curls from her performance. It is one of the literary genres, which is an delicate ears. Her eyes were blue as flowers, her lips and imitation of some action. Drama is also a type of a play chin had a gentle firmness. In her pale green suit, she was written for theater, television, radio, and film. like springtime come alive. He started toward her, entirely forgetting to notice that Types of Drama she was wearing no rose, and as he moved, a small, provocative smile curved her lips. COMEDY: Comedies are lighter in tone than ordinary works, and provide a happy conclusion. The intention of "Going my way, soldier?" she murmured. dramatists in comedies is to make their audience laugh. Uncontrollably, he made one step closer to her. Then he Hence, they use quaint circumstances, unusual saw Hollis Meynell. characters, and witty remarks. She was standing almost directly behind the girl, a TRAGEDY: Tragic dramas use darker themes, such as woman well past 40, her graying hair tucked under a disaster, pain, and death. Protagonists often have a worn hat. She was more than plump. Her thick-ankled tragic flaw — a characteristic that leads them to their feet were thrust into low-heeled shoes. But she wore a downfall. red rose on her crumpled coat. The girl in the green suit FARCE: Generally, a farce is a nonsensical genre of was walking quickly away drama, which often overacts or engages slapstick humor. Blanford felt as though he were being split in two, so MELODRAMA: Melodrama is an exaggerated drama, keen was his desire to follow the girl, yet so deep was his which is sensational and appeals directly to the senses of longing for the woman whose spirit had truly the audience. Just like the farce, the characters are of a companioned and upheld him; and there she stood. He single dimension and simple, or may be stereotyped. could see that her pale plump face was gentle and sensible; her gray eyes had a worn wrinkle. MUSICAL DRAMA: In musical dramas, dramatists not only tell their stories through acting and dialogue, but Lt. Blanford did not get hostile. His fingers gripped the through dance as well as music. Often the story may be worn copy of Human Bondage which was to identify him comedic, though it may also involve serious subjects. to her. This would not be love, but it would be something precious, a friendship for which he had been and must be - Exposition ever grateful… - Rising Action - Climax He squared his shoulders, saluted and held the book out - Falling Action towards the woman, although even while he spoke he - Resolution felt the bitterness of his disappointment. “I’m Lt. Blanford and you… Miss Maynell. I’m so glad you could meet me. May…may I take you to dinner?” STOP KISS By Diana Son The woman’s face broadened in a tolerant smile. “I don’t Diana Son a Korean-American playwright, television know what this is all about, son,” she answered. That producer and writer. She was born in Philadelphia, young woman in the green suit who just passed gave me Pennsylvania to Korean immigrant parents and raised in a rose to wear and said that if you asked me to go out Dover, Delaware. She notes her upbringing as rather with you, I should tell you she is waiting in the restaurant “Americanized,” commenting that it was not until she across the street. She said it was some kind of a test.” was a teenager that she noticed the differences between her own culture and that of her friends. She completed her undergraduate studies at New York University, where she majored in Dramatic Literature. WHAT ARE THE CHARACTERISTICS OF CONTEMPORARY DRAMA? ✓ Its use of realistic dialogue characterizes contemporary drama. ✓ Its focus on the everyday lives of ordinary people. ✓ Its rejection of traditional dramatic structure. Contemporary playwrights often seek to challenge audience expectations and provoke thought or discussion. This type of theater can be both serious and comedic, and it often relies heavily on naturalistic acting.