Reminders for Active Reading of Short Stories

1. The title of a story can be a clue to its theme.

1. The plot will usually unfold in several stages: exposition, narrative hook, rising action, climax, falling action, and resolution. A conflict of some kind sets in motion this whole process. Suspense builds in­terest in the plot as it unfolds.

2. Characters can be directly or indirectly portrayed and can be flat or round, static or dynamic.

3. The setting creates the story's atmosphere, and can help reveal the characters and theme of the story.

4. Point of view concerns the relationship between the narrator and the story. The author's tone expresses an attitude toward the story's characters and events.

5. The theme may be stated directly, or it may be implied in the other elements of the story.

6. Objects, persons, places, and events in the story may have both literal and symbolic meaning.

7. A story may include situational or verbal irony, which creates a contrast between appearance and reality.

Guide for Studying a Short Story

As you read short stories, review the following guide in order to appreciate how an author creates a fictional world.

Plot, Character, and Setting

1. What kinds of conflict does the story present?

2. What is the exposition? What event is the narrative hook? What complications form the rising action?

3. What event is the climax? Does the resolution logically follow the conflict and climax?

4. What does the author directly tell about the characters? What does the author indirectly show through their words and actions?

5. Are the characters round or flat? Static or dynamic?

6. When and where does the story take place?

7. What details arc used to describe the setting? What atmosphere is created by these details?

8. Does the setting change during the story?

Point of View and Tone

1. Does the author use the first-person point of view, in which a character tells the story?

2. Does the author reveal the thoughts of only one character through limited third-person point of view?

3. Does the author reveal the thoughts of several characters through omniscient point of view?

4. What is the author's tone?

Theme

1. Is the theme, or central idea, directly stated?

2. If the theme is not stated directly, what theme is implied by the story's other elements?

Symbol and Irony

1. Is an object, place, person, or experience in the story given symbolic meaning?

2. Does the story include situational irony? Docs it include verbal irony?

Plot Development

The plot is the sequence of events in the story.

I

4.climax

t usually follows the pattern below.

1.exposition

2.narrative hook

6.resolution

In the exposition the author introduces the story's characters, setting, and situation to us. The narrative hook is the point at which the author catches our attention and establishes the basic conflict that the story will eventually resolve. The narrative hook marks the beginning of the rising action, which adds complications to the story.

The rising action leads up to the climax, the point of our greatest involvement in the story. The climax usually indicates the way in which the story's conflict will be solved. The falling action reveals the outcome of the climax, and the resolu­tion brings the story to a satisfying and logical con­clusion.

Foreshadowing

Many authors use clues known as foreshadow­ing to prepare their readers for later developments in the plot. These clues can take the form of minor incidents or statements that suggest later develop­ments. Foreshadowing increases our involvement in any story, but it is particularly effective in a mystery. Such clues enable the alert reader to feel like the detective who even­tually unravels the mystery.

Conflict

Conflict is the clash between opposing forces, individuals, or ideas. An external conflict occurs between a character and some outside force. That force may be nature. For instance, a woman may face a conflict with nature as she tries to sail a boat through a dense fog. The opposing force may be another person. For in­stance, two characters may engage in an argument or competition. The struggle may be against a social system or some other institution. For exam­ple, a man may fight against an unjust law. Finally, a character may fight against fate, or circumstances that cannot be changed. For instance, a character may struggle against the irreversible progress of a disease.

An internal conflict on the other hand occurs within a character’s own mind. A character may experience conflicting emotions – for example, being proud about a new job and frightened about its responsibilities. A character may have to choose between opposing goals; for example, between sav­ing money for college and buying a much-needed car. A character may face a moral dilemma: for instance, telling the truth even if it will hurt some­one else.

Many stories involve both external and internal conflict. A man involved in an external conflict against an unjust law may also experience an internal conflict over whether the struggle is worth the effort. Whatever form it takes, the conflict is usually resolved by the story's end.

While conflict is important in fiction, it is the very essence of drama. Most plays present their action through a series of confronta­tions between characters, without a narrator to describe what is happening. Drama therefore depends entirely on conflict between and within characters to move the action forward. In addition, because no narrator comments on the action, a play may present the audience with conflicting views of its various characters and events, views that may differ from one speaker to the next.

Character

Direct and Indirect Characterization

Authors use direct characterization when they make direct statements about their characters' per­sonalities. The reader accepts as the truth an author's direct statement that a character is gentle or in­telligent.

Authors use the technique of indirect characterization to reveal their characters' personalities through their thoughts, words, and actions, or through the comments of other characters. Indirect characterization requires us to interpret a character's behavior to decide what that character is like.

Flat and Round Characters

Depending on how much information we are given about them, characters can be either flat or round. Flat characters seem very simple, as if they could be summed up with only one or two personal­ity traits. Round characters have many different and sometimes even contradictory personality traits. Because they are complex, or many-sided, round characters are capable of doing and saying surprising things. In this sense they are like people in real life.

Static and Dynamic Characters

Besides being either flat or round, characters can be either static or dynamic. Static characters re­main the same throughout the story. Dynamic char­acters change and develop, often because of something that happens to them in the course of the story. Such a change, in fact, can be the most important event in the story.

Setting and Atmosphere

The setting of a story is the time and place in which the events of the story occur.

An author usually describes the setting early in the narrative, using several vivid details to lead us directly into the world of the story.

In many stories the setting simply provides a background for the plot and characters. However, in some stories the choice of setting can actually in­fluence the plot and characters. For example, a story that takes place in a modern American suburb is likely to be about events and people quite differ­ent from those we would meet in a story set on an ancient battlefield.

The setting often creates an atmosphere, or mood, that colors the entire story. The atmosphere may be exotic or homey, colorful or bleak, forbid­ding or comforting, intimate or grand, placid or ex­citing, and so on. Recognizing a story's atmosphere often helps us to understand the story's characters and action.

Point of View and Tone

First-Person Point of View

Point of view is the relationship between the storyteller and the story.

Another name for the story­teller is the narrator. In a story told from the first-person point of view, the narrator is one of the char­acters and relates events in which he or she was in­volved. Stories told from the first-person point of view are often especially vivid because their narra­tors are so close to the action. However, these stories usually offer a very limited view of the truth since they cannot reveal things that the narrator does not know - for example, the thoughts of other characters; similarly, a first-person narrator may not fully understand the events in the story.

In some first-person stories we cannot even be sure that the narrator is entirely truthful. Such a storyteller is called an unreliable narrator, a narrator who in some way distorts the truth. Stories with unreliable narrators often include evidence that the narrator is hiding the truth or is mentally unbal­anced. In reading a story with a first-person narrator, we should first decide whether the narrator seems to be reliable or not; if the narrator seems unreliable, we should always question his or her account of the story's events.