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Literature is like every other material you'll examine in that
someone wrote it. As in all good writing, the author had a purpose in mind,
something s/he wanted to communicate to the reader.
In order to communicate that idea, the author made a series of
choices about what to include in the material, what to exclude, and how to say
it. When you read a short story, you want to examine the choices the
author made to try to understand what s/he is trying to communicate and how s/he wants you
to feel. You particularly want to notice the things about the story that you would
not have expected and ask yourself why the author might have written the story this way
instead of in a more predictable way.
| For example, why did Caldwell choose to shift the focus of his story from
Hugh to Cora? Why doesn't he just focus on Cora and begin the story with her
marriage to Hugh? What does he want us to know or understand that we might not have
understood if he had started the story in another place? |
When people talk about
literature, they use a particular terminology. As in all fields with their own
terminology, the purpose of the terms is to make it easier and quicker to discuss certain
aspects of the field. For example, when someone says that a story is told by a third
person omniscient narrator, another person who knows that term understands that the author
chose to tell the story through the eyes of someone not in the story, but someone who
could report the thoughts and feelings of everyone in the story even when placed in very
different locations.
Thus, the next step in understanding
literature is to learn its terminology and to apply it to the story you've read.
You probably know many of them and may be less familiar with others.
The brief explanations that follow may be used to learn and apply some of the less
familiar terms commonly used in discussing literature. Go to Task #9 when you are ready to do it.
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Characters |
The characters in a story are the representations of people in it. The main
characters are the ones who are central to the action of the plot. They are
generally the protagonists (or heroes) of the story, the ones you are
most involved with emotionally.
They are also involved in the struggle or conflict that is the central
action of the story. They sometimes are in conflict with the antagonist,
another character in the story, or an antagonistic force. In the
story of Cinderella, Cinderella is the protagonist and her wicked stepmother, the
antagonist. There may be more than one protagonist, antagonist or antagonistic force
in a story.
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