Novels / Stories

The novel is a relatively modern form of literature. The modern novel has existed for only the past three hundred years. Earlier narratives—such as Homer's Iliad or Chaucer's Canterbury Tales —were written in verse.

Novels and stories portray the trials and tribulations of life and the crises of human existence. The characters and settings reflect real life, although a sub-set of novels features more unrealistic (and often melodramatic) plots in imagined historical or future times (as with J. R. R. Tolkien's The Hobbit , Jules Verne's Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea , or modern science fiction).

While written in prose, stories often exhibit poetic use of language and dialogue commonly associated with drama. (See Poetry and Drama .)

The Author and the Narrator

The author of a story often plays an active role within a story. The author, in the voice of the narrator, can openly comment on characters and their actions and predicaments. This "point of view" has been compared to the angle from which a camera might observe actions. The two major options for the point of view of a story are named after the pronouns authors might use:

first person narrator who participates in the story – I did this.
third person narrator who stands outside the story itself – He/she did/thought this

The two different forms of narrator enable two different effects. A first person narrator might be an observer who sees all events, a minor character (as with Ishmael in Moby Dick), or even a major participant (as with the main character in Salinger's The Catcher in the Rye). When a character in the story, the narrator is limited in his or her understanding. Such narrators cannot be privy to other characters' thoughts or to actions at which they are not present.

First-Person Narrator
I said, "Who killed him?" and he said, "I don't know who killed him but he's dead all right," and it was dark and there was water standing in the street and no lights and windows broke and boats all up in the town and trees blown down and everything all blown and I got a skiff and went out and found my boat where I had her inside Mango Bay and she was all right only she was full of water.
          Ernest Hemingway, After the Storm
Call me Ishmael. Some years ago--never mind how long precisely--having little or no money in my purse, and nothing particular to interest me on shore, I thought I would sail about a little and see the watery part of the world.
          Herman Melville, Moby Dick
"Good-bye, my son. Bless you!" Mr. Turveydrop said this in quite a pious manner, and it seemed to do his son good, who, in parting from him, was so pleased with them, so dutiful to him, and so proud of him that I almost felt as if it were an unkindness to the younger man not to be able to believe implicitly in the elder.
          Charles Dickens, Bleak House

A third person narrator can be all-knowing and might describe the action from one or many character's viewpoints. Such a narrator can guiding the reader's understanding by commenting on and evaluating actions as they occur (as in the novels of Dickens or Austen) or simply describe the action without much commentary.

Third-Person Narrator
(In the opening line the narrator, describing the story in the third person, nevertheless speaks to the reader in the first person.) We have as yet hardly spoken of the infant; that little creature, whose innocent life had sprung, by the inscrutable decree of Providence, a lovely and immortal flower, out of the rank luxuriance of a guilty passion. How strange it seemed to the sad woman, as she watched the growth, and the beauty that became every day more brilliant, and the intelligence that threw its quivering sunshine over the tiny features of this child! Her Pearl!--For so had Hester called her; not as a name expressive of her aspect, which had nothing of the calm, white, unimpassioned luster that would be indicated by the comparison. But she named the infant "Pearl," as being of great price,--purchased with all she had,--her mother's only treasure! How strange, indeed! Man had marked this woman's sin by a scarlet letter, which had such potent and disastrous efficacy that no human sympathy could reach her, save it were sinful like herself.
Nathaniel Hawthorne, The Scarlet Letter

Reading Stories: Content

Our first concern when reading a story or novel is following the plot or story line—a term encompassing both the characters and their actions. These two elements—character and action—contribute the major content of the story.

The plot must have a context; it must take place somewhere and at some time. We can thus add a third element of content, the setting (see below). Analysis of stories looks at the interrelationship between patterns of these three aspects of the story: character, action, and setting.

Character

Characters (i.e., personalities in a story) have unique characters (i.e., human qualities). We judge character by how characters are described and how their actions are depicted. That is, we look at both what is said about characters by a narrator or other characters and at the actions and behaviors attributed to them. Characters often represent common character types: e.g., the bureaucrat, the bully, and the siren.

Action

Stories recount the loves, struggles, and confrontations of the characters. Stories involve conflict and its resolution. Conflict can arise from tension between individuals, between an individual and legal religious, political, or other institutions, or with one's own conscience. Conflict can thus involve an internal or external battle. Conflict with others can involve differing values, competing goals, the possession of a certain object (such as an inheritance or the crown in Hamlet), or the conflict can take symbolic form (as in Captain Ahab's struggle against nature represented by the whale Moby Dick).

In the actions of characters we see values, goals, and alliances. From each action we infer behaviors, character traits and values—what the action is an example of. Such an understanding constitutes "explaining" the action.

Setting

The setting includes all of the forces and institutions acting on the characters. Setting includes the geographical location, social climate, the historical period, and the cultural mores—any and all factors that influence the characters and against which the characters act and against which their actions are measured.

An understanding and/or appreciation for the Puritan beliefs of sin, for instance, is essential for understanding and /or appreciating Hawthorne's The Scarlet Letter. In some instances, locations can represent forces: fields can suggest openness and opportunity, rooms can suggest seclusion or isolation,

Imagine the action taking place elsewhere, at another time, in another culture to realize the effect of a particular setting.

Reading Stories: Language

Of the three elements examined here (content, language, and structure), language is the least important, although hardly insignificant, element of a story. Language plays a role predominantly in terms of the use of symbolism and projecting an overall tone. We might think of this as part of the mental setting in which the action takes place. Analyzing The Scarlet Letter, we might note how language is used to indicate the lightness of the scene of Hester and her daughter Pearl in contrast to the darkness of the scene in which Hester confronts Reverend Dimmesdale. Language also can play a major role in terms of accents or dialects, as in Twain's Huckleberry Finn.

Reading Stories: Structure

Description of the structure of a story can be understood in two ways.

In the first case, we have the linear progression from chapter to chapter. Within this structure, there is the building of suspense, the unfolding of conflict and its resolution. It is here that we discuss the plot, the rising action, climax, and resolution.

Alternatively, we can look at the patterns of actions and interrelationship of characters occurring throughout the story.

Note that stories, unlike non-fiction, are generally read and or appreciated only in their entirety. We can read a portion of a nonfiction work for specific information; to understand a story we must follow the complete unfolding and resolution of the plot. The same is generally true for drama as well.