Reading+Short+Stories

You should be able to identify each character and the essential qualities of each.
 * ** Analyze the Essential Elements of the Story **
 * 1) Read the text carefully, noting each character. **

Distinguish between major and minor characters. You will know more about major characters (your list of attributes or characteristics and simple data will be greater for the major characters). Often, you will be able to identify a "protagonist" (whose affairs tend to move the story along) and an "antagonist" (whose affairs or interests seem to contradict the acts and the interests of the "protagonist"). Minor characters will be less fully developed and act in concert or motivated by the major characters.
 * 2) Identify the major character(s)--those who seem to control the action or from whose perspective the story is told. **

Be able to reconstruct the "story line," the chain of events that run sequentially from the first to the last (even though they may not be introduced sequentially).
 * 3) Reconstruct the narrative line--"what happens." **

The late British novelist E. M. Forester in Understanding Fiction suggested a useful distinction between "narrative line" and "plot." If you want to know the "narrative live," says Forester, ask "what happens." If you want to know the plot, ask "why do things happen." For Forester, plot is that set of events, characters, conditions, themes, and other elements both internal and external to the work that influence the narrative line to go the way it does.
 * 4) Identify elements of the plot--"factors which influence the action." **

Common to all fiction is conflict. That conflict may be a standoff between characters, a crossing of wills or goals, a battle between character and setting, even the struggle against ideas. || The theme of a story is the dominant message or claim that seems to emerge as the tale evolves. As such, it can be stated as a complete statement, sometimes as a position or judgment; other times as an interpretation. Sometimes the theme can be a single element (motif) like rain, for example, and all that rain can mean as we understand it from our own and others' experiences of it. In other cases, the theme may be the promulgation of a certain value. Themes usually are implied, but occasionally they are even announced by a character. A character that serves throughout a story to seem to voice positions or attitudes, values or concerns of an author are special characters called "personas." Themes can also be suggested by image patterns, symbols, features of a setting, and by the attributes and affairs of characters within a story.
 * 5) Discuss the essential conflict. **
 * ** Analyze the Meaning of the Story (Interpretation) **
 * 1) Identify what seems to be the theme and how the author announces it. **

Be able to cite specific passages from the text of the story to support your interpretation of an author's theme(s).
 * 2) Explain how elements above contribute to the theme. **

The more you learn about an author or read from his or her works, the more comfortable you will be in analyzing implied meanings like interpretations. What happens in an author's life can have a very strong influence on a writer's work, although you should be very cautious about insisting that every element of a short story have some reference to the author's life. Like the author's personal experiences, historical events, personalities, and periods can be sources or influences on an author's works. Watch for allusions to such elements and be alert to how they seem to affect both the plot and narrative line as well as character development. || ** 1) Identify the author's use of irony (dramatic, situational, verbal). ** Irony refers to "the unexpected." "Dramatic irony" is a sense of the unexpected the reader experiences while watching the characters of a story act and react without the wisdom or broader knowledge of the reader. "Situational irony" refers to the unexpected that comes as a shock to both readers and characters alike. "Verbal irony," sometimes called "double entendre," refers to the use of words with double meanings, usually meanings that have an important consequence or that are meant to reveal special information or character.
 * 3) Identify contextual elements (allusions, symbols, other devices) that point beyond the story to the author's experience/life, history, or to other writings. **
 * ** Analyze Rhetorical Elements **

Images are impressions of one or more of the five senses. We speak of "visual images," "auditory images," "tactile images," etc. Words that have references to objects or entities that we experience sensuously (through the senses) project imaginative images that remind of us previous experiences or perceptions. "Image patterns" are the recurring sets of related images that authors introduce in a story, usually for some reason like helping to develop a character or project a theme.
 * 2) Identify recurring image patterns. **

While not all images are symbols, all symbols are images! That is, some images have only their normal references as their meaning. However, images that "take on" meanings beyond their normal references are called "symbols." Authors use symbols to create implied meaning(s) in their stories.
 * 3) Explain the author's use of symbols. **

Authors will often use language patterns that go beyond the normal terms or expressions most users of the same language would employ to "tell the story." An author's unique use of words (diction) and sentence patterns (syntax) are the two elements that characterize his or her style. When a writer chooses to make an unusual comparison (a figure of speech) or adopts unnatural terms to characterize a description, explanation, or the voice of a character, it is usually for some purpose. Ask yourself why the author might be doing so. Be able to support your interpretation or judgment with specific examples from the text of the story. ||
 * 4) Identify special uses of language like figures of speech, unusual diction and syntax. **