what is the difference between poems, short stories, and novels?
TRANSCRIPT
What is the difference between poems, short stories, and novels?
Poems/short stories/ novels
• Short stories resemble poems—both tend to rely on compression rather than expansion
• Short fiction –’the art of the glimpse’
• Short stories tell much less than novels do: they demand that you understand and evaluate characters on the basis of just a few details and events
What are the elements of short fiction?
• Plot and structure
• Point of view
• Characterization
• Setting
• Imagery
• Language
• Theme
Plot and structure
• Plot – What will happen next?• Williams’s story – Is the girl concealing an
infected throat?• Structure: ABCDE formula• Action• Background• Development –takes the reader a step closer to the
main event• Climax- peak moment of drama• Ending –may relate to the beginning
Point of view
• A story may be told from a particular character’s perspective or point of view
• First person – pronoun I• The narrator may be psychologically complex• How objective does the narrator seem in depicting
other people and events?• How reasonable do the narrator’s judgments
seem?
Point of view
• Omniscient narrator – ‘all-knowing’
• A seemingly all-knowing, objective voice
• Describe Welty’s, Kafka’s, Achebe’s,Mhafouz’s,Chekhov’s, and Williams’s narrative voice
• Free indirect style – a narrator otherwise omniscient conveys a particular character’s viewpoint
Characters
• You may want to judge characters according to how easily you can identify with them
• Reading a short story involves relating its characters to one another
• Protagonist – when a particular character seems to be the story’s focus
• Antagonist – in conflict with the protagonist
Setting and imagery
• The characters are located in a particular place or setting
• Short stories vary in the precision with which they identify their settings
• Short stories use imagery to convey meaning –they appear in the form of metaphors or other figures of speech
Language
• Title --usually you have to read a story all the way through before you can sense fully how its title applies
• Predominant style – not all stories have a uniform style. Some feature various tones, dialects, vocabularies, and levels of formality
• Dialogue – by reporting various things, characters may provide you with necessary background for the plot
Theme
• Theme --The main claim a work of art seems to make
• An assertion, proposition, or statement rather than a single word
• An observation or a recommendation
• What are the themes of Welty’s Williams’s, and Chekhov’s stories?
