Understanding Theme, Setting & Characterization in Short Stories

1. BBL 3216 UNIT 2 INTRODUCTION TO SHORT STORIES

2. WHEN READING A LITERARY TEXT..

3. THEME, SETTING & CHARACTERIZATION What does the story say about life? How does the author reveal the theme? Does one of the character state it? Does the author tell you? Do you have to realize it yourself? Does the story say something about life (the theme) or is the story simply a description of a character or tale of series of events? THEME - Is the basic idea of a short story abstracted from fusion of setting, characters and plot. The central or dominating idea in a literary work. Ask yourself whether you can draw out of the story some eternal truth or truths.

4. It is the controlling idea of the story. It is a generalization about life arising from details or specifics of the work itself. Theme is a unifying generalization about life stated or implied by the story. “ Not all stories have themes. The purpose of a horror story is to thrill the readers: the purpose of an adventure story is to take the reader to exciting places; the purpose of a murder mystery may be simply pose a problem for the reader & try to solve a murder; the purpose of some stories are to entertain the reader and to make them laugh or surprise them at the end. Theme exist only.” “When an author has seriously attempted to record life accurately or to reveal some truth about it. When s/he has mechanically introduced some concept or theory of life into it that s/he uses as a unifying element and that his/her story is meant to illustrate.” (Perrine, 1974)

5. Theme can be; • a revelation of human character • may be stated briefly or at great length • a theme is not the “moral” of the story. When analyzing the theme of a story, the readers should consider some important items, such as; • A theme must be expressible in the form of a statement - not “children” but “being a child sometimes mean freedom in thoughts.” • A theme must be stated as a generalization about life; names of characters or specific situations in the plot are not to be used when stating a theme. • A theme is the central and unifying concept of the story. It must adhere to the following requirements: 1. It must account for all the major details of the story. 2. It must not be contradicted by any detail of the story. 3. It must not rely on supposed facts - facts not actually stated or clearly implied by the story.

6. There is no one way of stating the theme of a story. Any statement that reduces a theme to some familiar saying, aphorism, or cliché should be avoided. Do not use “all roads lead to Rome,” “you can’t please everyone, “ “seeing is believing,” and so on. Determining and Discussing the Theme First we should distinguish between the story and theme from each other in fiction. The story is concerned with; “How does it turn out?” “What happens?” But the theme is concerned with “What is it about?”, “What motifs hold the happening together?” “What does it make of life and perhaps what wisdom does it offer?”

7. SETTING & ATMOSPEHERE • Setting is the locale in which readers find the characters. In other words, it is the imagery world of fiction into which the readers are invited to meet the characters and see the location and place of fiction • Description of setting is a way to establish the atmosphere, mood or tone of the story. • There may be many different settings during the course of the story. Through the setting, writers can create an emotional state for the reader while reading the story. • The setting of the environment, not mere geography, provides an atmosphere, an air that the characters breathe and, a world in which they move. • The setting is the physical surrounding, the furniture, the architecture, the landscape, the climate, and there are characters that are associated with them.

8. DURING SUMMER, IN 1986, IN APRIL.. LIVING ROOM, A HOUSE, A BAR,ETC COUNTRY, CITY, TOWN, STATE,ETC TWO HOURS,A YEAR, A DECADE,ETC • Setting in a story means the time and place where the events of the story occur. It can not only mirror the mood of the story, but it can also be used ironically. Setting can mold and shape the characters. • It also helps the reader escape to imaginary or historical places & times. Setting can be divided into 2 categories :

9. CHARACTERIZATION The simplest definition of a character is an imagined person who inhabits a story (Kennedy,2005). Much of the interest in a short story or in a novel lies in the characters whose world the readers enter and whose lives they share. The readers while reading analyze their personalities through the way they behave on incidents and the way they talk sometimes and trace how the characters are affected by events and empathize or disapprove of them (Croft,2000) Characterization is the introduction, presentation and description of characters in a work of fiction. Moreover, characterization is the creation of imaginary persons so that they seem lifelike. Character refers to a person or an animal in fables that has a part in the story and has motivation to talk and act and do something.

10. Characters in a short story interact with each other, often revealing their personality in the process. However, characters in a short story often have symbolic names and attributes since the short story is economical in both language and length. Therefore, this process is not a process of a sequence of events but a process of gradually revealed symbolism. The ability to characterize the people of his/her imagination successfully is one of the chief attributes of a writer, although modern fiction may sometimes dispense with characterization altogether.

11. There are three fundamental methods of characterization in fiction. 1. The explicit presentation by the author of the character. This maybe done through the authors own description or by means of the comment, thoughts, feelings of another characters concerning the character in question. 2. The presentation of character in action with little or no explicit comment by the author. 3. The representation from within a character of the impact of actions and emotions upon his inner self. This type of characterization is best represented by the stream of consciences novel where through interior monologues, the subconscious or unconscious mind of the character is revealed.

12. Reading for character is more difficult than reading for plot, for character is much more complex, variable, and ambiguous. Anyone can tell what a person has done in a story, nevertheless; one may need to have considerable skill to analyze what type of character the person in the story is (Perrine, 1974). In order to identify what a person is one should first have an idea about the character types. TYPES OF CHARACTERS Static – this character type remains the same from the beginning of the plot to the end. It may also be a character who changes a little if at all in the progress of the narrative. Things happen to such a character without things happening within him.

13. sufficiently motivated within the possibilities of the character allowed sufficient time for change Dynamic character :The character undergoes a permanent change, changes and develops in the story. The character grows as a person, learns a vital lesson, or becomes something else. This change must be; Three- dimensional : plays an important role in the story and constitutes all major characters, including villains. They have complex emotions and conflicting motives, troubled past, and deep worries; They are alive with passion, and ambition and desire, never apathetic. Any character that spends longer than several pages in your book , should be 3 dimensional, or the reader loses interest.

14. PLOT Plot, in general definition, is the sequence of incidents or events that composes the story. A story plot may include what a character says or thinks, as well as what s/he does. Yet it leaves out description and analysis and concentrates ordinarily on major happenings. (Perrine, 1974) On the other hand, plot, in a very common definition, is a connected chain of events. It is customary to say that a narrative- a story whether a short story or a novel has an introduction, a complication and a resolution. In other words it gets under way, some difficulty or problem or complexity (usually a conflict of opposed forces) arises and there is some type of settling down.

15. PLOT A plot in a story contains a strong sense of causality (cause and effect relation). Some fiction has a good deal of physical action, wondering, births and deaths. Nevertheless, there is also fiction in which little seems to happen. Usually those plotless stories involve a mental action which is the plot. The sense of causality is mostly rooted in the character. Things happen in most good fictions, at least partly because the people have certain personalities or character traits (moral, intellectual). What they look like or their names may help us understand them. What they say and do are also important. A good plot is consisted of five phases. These are initial balance (exposition), rising action, climax, falling action and denouement (resolution). All these phases can be shown in Freytag’s Pyramid.

16. TYPES OF PLOTS CLIMAX FALLING ACTION RISING ACTION EXPOSITION DENOUEMENT Freytag’s Pyramid of Plot Structure Initial Balance (exposition): In exposition the setting, characters and the plot are introduced. In other words, the background information that is necessary to understand the story is provided. Exposition ends as the motion in the story starts and this motion leads to rising action. Rising Action: In rising action the conflict is developed and intensified. Conflict is a clash of actions, ideas, desires or wills (Perrine, 1975). The protagonist meets with some obstacles that frustrate him to reach his goal.

17. Conflict: Conflict is the tension or the struggle between characters or opposing forces in a plot. It is the conflict which provides the elements of interest in a play or a novel or a short story. There are four types of conflicts that may become an obstacle for the protagonist. Person against Self: An internal conflict of feelings. Conflict with some element in his/her own nature. This may be physical, mental, emotional or moral. Person against Person: This is a typical protagonist verses antagonist scenario. The good guy and the bad guy have some kind of battle in this type of conflict. Person against Society: The protagonist battles against the larger organizations of the society, or a system of beliefs held by the society. Person against Nature: The protagonist is threatened by a component of nature

18. Climax: Climax is the highest dramatic tension of the story that the reader can find. In other words, climax is the turning point in the story which shows that nothing will be the same again. Falling Action: In falling action the tension subsides and the plot moves towards its conclusion. Namely, the conflict between the protagonist and the antagonist resolves with the protagonist’s victory or defeat against the antagonist. The falling action, then, is made up of the events that follow the climax and lead to the resolution. Denouement (resolution): It is the final outcome of the story. The main event or the conflict unravels. In resolution loose ends are tied up, the fate and perhaps, the future of the characters is revealed.

19. POINT OF VIEW It is the camera eye of the story. In the old times the story tellers of the tribes started to tell their stories without considering the form. “Once upon a time”, they began their stories and proceed to narrate the stories to their listeners describing the characters when necessary and telling what they thought and felt as well as what they did. While doing this the story tellers interjected their comments and ideas of their own. In our times, modern fiction writers know that there are many ways to present a story. They decide upon a method before they begin to compose a story. Instead of telling the stories themselves they employ one of their characters in the story to do it for them (Perrine, 1974).

20. The point of view informs us how the story is told and how we know about what happens in a story. The narrator of a story shapes the reader’s perception of reality in the story. The narrator may be a character in the story or some unknown voice outside of the plot. Narrative voice falls into two categories: third person voice (he or she) or first person voice (I, we). Sometimes, the author intrudes, speaking directly to the reader, outside of the plot narration. Briefly, stories are told from the point of view of a narrator and the narrator as a participant may appear in a major or minor character. When the story is narrated by using the first person “I”, it is clear that the narrator is there as a major character, protagonist, or one of the minor characters in the story.

21. First Person: First person narrators embody the first person autobiographical (the character in the story tells the story, often about his or her own life, sometimes in a confessional tone); first person observer (the character in the story tells story, but this time s/he talks about the other characters. In other words the narrator is a reflector of the action); first person interior monologue (narrator speaks to us either in non-linear or stream-of-consciousness style or in a linear, focused or edited monologue). In the first person voice, the character refers to himself or herself as “I” in the story and addresses the reader as “you,” either explicitly or by implication. First Person Observer: The narrator is a bystander, one who has seen or heard of the events but has not taken part in them.

22. First Person participant : The narrator tells the story as though he or she is actually taking part in the events. Therefore you know what the narrator thinks but you do not know what the other characters think Third person: It is the voice outside the action who tells the story. Third person narrator includes: The omniscient: In this type, the narrator is all-knowing and is able to tell us what each character is thinking using the third person. The narrator in such circumstances can direct the reader’s attention to the inner thoughts of any of the characters and controls the sources of information. Limited omniscient: The author tells the story in the third person, but s/he tells it from the view point of one character in the story. This way the author looks at the events of the story through his/her eyes and through his/her mind. The author moves inside and outside this character. Yet never leaves this character’ side.