EWRT 30 Class 8

AGENDA

Terms 1-8

Review: POV and PlotDiscussion: Fiction

Lecture: Character and Setting

Guided Writing:

Terms

1. Character2. Flat characters3. Round characters 4. Protagonist5. Antagonist 6. Motivation7. Plot8. Chronological Order

1. Protagonist: The protagonist or hero is the central character in the story who engages our interest or sympathy. Sometimes, the term protagonist is preferable to hero, because the central character can be despicable as well as heroic.

2. Antagonist: the character or force that opposes the antagonist.

3. Character: an imagined person in a literary work. 4. Flat characters: are one-dimensional figures with

simple personalities. They show none of the human depth, complexity, and contrariness of a round character or of most real people.

5. Round characters are complex figures. A round character is a full, complex, multidimensional character whose personality reveals some of the richness and contradictoriness we are accustomed to observing in actual people, rather than the transparent obviousness of a flat character. We may see a significant change take place in a round character during the story.

7. Motivation is the external forces (setting, circumstances) and internal forces (personality, temperament, morality, intelligence) that compel a character to act as he or she does in a story.

8. Plot: the artistic arrangement of events in a story.

9. Chronological Order: the story is told in the order in which things happen. It begins with what happens first, then second, and so on, until the last incident is related.

The Review

Plot and POV“The Tell Tale Heart”“A Very Short Story”“Dr. Chevalier’s Lie”

Review: In your groups, discuss plot and POV. Consider the three stories from your reading

Plot Line

Exposition: The start of the story. The way things are before the action starts.

Rising Action: the series of conflicts and crisis in the story that lead to the climax.

Climax: The turning point. The most intense moment (either mentally or in action). The conflict is generally addressed here.

Falling Action: all of the action that follows the Climax.

Resolution: The conclusion; the tying together of all of the threads.

Conflict: Struggle between opposing forces

The Tell Tale Heart

Exposition: The narrator offers a story as proof he is not insane. He describes the situation with old man and his eye.

Rising Action: 2. The narrator makes a noise and wakes the man up: he opens the eye.1. He goes to the room every night for a week, but the eye is closed

Climax: The narrator kills the old man, cuts up the body, and hides it under the floor

Falling Action:1.The police show up and he shows them the house. They settle in the old man’s bedroom.2.The noise gets louder and louder until the narrator tells the cops to look under the floorboards.

Resolution: The narrator identifies the source of the “sound” as “the beating of [the man’s] hideous heart.”

Conflict: The narrator wants to kill the old man

“A Very Short Story”“Dr. Chevalier’s Lie”

Exposition: The start of the story. The way things are before the action starts.

Rising Action: the series of conflicts and crisis in the story that lead to the climax.

Climax: The turning point. The most intense moment (either mentally or in action). The conflict is generally addressed here.

Falling Action: all of the action that follows the Climax.

Resolution: The conclusion; the tying together of all of the threads.

Conflict: Struggle between opposing forces

Review: Three Common Points of View

Omniscient: The narrator knows everything, including what each character is thinking, feeling, and doing throughout the story. 

3rd Person Limited: The narrator knows only the thoughts and feelings of a single character, while other characters are presented only externally.

1st Person: The narrator participates in action but sometimes has limited knowledge about both events outside of those in which he or she is directly involved and motivations that are not his or her own.

Point of View

“The Tell Tale Heart” by Edgar Allan Poe

What kind of narrator tells this story?

Point of View “The Tell Tale Heart”

by Edgar Allan Poe 1st person narrator

Unreliable: he is trying to prove he is sane, which he obviously is not! The narrator admits that "he can hear all things in the heaven and in the earth [and] many things in hell"

He occasionally pretends to be an omniscient narrator. When he says, "Presently I heard a slight groan, and I knew it was the groan of mortal terror. […] I knew the sound well. Many a night […] it has welled up from my own bosom,” he is telling us how the hold man feels and what he thinks.

Point of View

“A Very Short Story” by Ernest Hemingway

What kind of narrator tells this story?

Point of View “A Very Short Story”

by Ernest Hemingway

Omniscient or 3rd person limited narrator? The narrator seems to be external, yet he

generally speaks from the point of view of the man. Note that he neither names him nor identifies him. Furthermore, the last sentences are like the description of the scene that this man sees.

But, the narrator doesn't obviously enter the man’s mind, so he appears to be an objective narrator in that he leaves the interpretation of the actions of the characters to the reader.

Yet, there are signs of anger in the text, which suggests that the narrator is manipulating the reader into seeing the story from his point of view. This would conflict with the objective narrator POV.

Point of View

“Dr. Chevalier’s Lie” by Kate Chopin

What kind of narrator tells this story?

Point of View “Dr. Chevalier’s Lie”

by Kate Chopin The (objective) omniscient

narrator The story includes details about

both the doctor’s and the townspeople’s behavior.

The neutral tone in the conclusion shows that the narrator does not editorialize about society’s thoughts about the girl or Chevalier’s lie.

In Groups, discuss POV. Prepare to read a paragraph or two demonstrating each of the following perspectives:

1st person Wolf1st person little Pig1st person Mother Pig or another minor character

3rd person Wolf3rd person little Pig3rd person Mother Pig or another minor character

Omniscient Objective: Just tells factsOmniscient Subjective: Enters the minds and shares feelings of multiple characters

Lecture SubjectCharacter and Setting

Basic Elements of a Story

1.PLOT - the story line; a unified, progressive pattern of action or events

in a story

2.POINT OF VIEW (POV) - the position from which the story is told

3.CHARACTER - person portraying himself or another

in a narrative or drama

4.SETTING - the time and place of the action in a story5.TONE - the attitude of the author toward his subject or toward the reader

6.MOOD - the feeling or state of mind that predominates in a story creating a

certain atmosphere

Types of Characters: Round Character: convincing, true to life;

fully developed and described. Not all good or all bad.

Dynamic Character: undergoes some type of change in story, generally after a conflict.

Flat Character: stereotyped, shallow, often symbolic.

Static Character: does not change in the course of the story.

Methods of Characterization

By directly describing:

Luz sat on the bed. She was cool and fresh in the hot night.

Through the reaction of other characters. Luz stayed on night duty for three months. They

were glad to let her.

Through the character’s own words and actions: “The following day he wrote a letter. One,

doubtless, to carry sorrow, but no shame to the cabin down there in the forest. It told that the girl had sickened and died. A lock of hair was sent and other trifles with it. Tender last words were even invented”

By detailing physical appearance, particularly features that symbolize character.

It was open --wide, wide open --and I grew furious as I gazed upon it. I saw it with perfect distinctness --all a dull blue, with a hideous veil over it that chilled the very marrow in my bones; but I could see nothing else of the old man's face or person: for I had directed the ray as if by instinct, precisely upon the damned spot.

By sharing the characters own thoughts. Was it possible they heard not? Almighty God!

--no, no! They heard! --they suspected! --they knew! --they were making a mockery of my horror!-this I thought, and this I think.

Setting: the time, place, and period in which the action occurs.

The Bean Trees: Arizona/Oklahoma 1980s.

The Catcher in the Rye: New York, 1940s

Lord of the Flies: deserted island, the future.

Setting can help in the portrayal of character.

“it was so quiet and lonesome out, even though it was Saturday night. I didn’t see hardly anybody on the street. Now and then you just saw a man and a girl crossing the street with their arms around each other’s waists and all, or a bunch of hoodlumy-looking guys and their dates, all of them laughing like hyenas at something you could bet wasn’t funny. New York’s terrible when somebody laughs on the street very late at night. You can hear it for miles. It makes you feel so lonesome and depressed” (Salinger 81).

The Catcher in the Rye

In some works of fiction, the action is so closely related to setting that the plot is directed by it.

“The new man stands, looking a minute, to get the set-up of the day room. One side of the room younger patients, known as Acutes because the doctors figure them still sick enough to be fixed, practice arm wrestling and card tricks…Across the room from the Acutes are the culls of the Combine’s product, the Chronics. Not in the hospital, these to get fixed, but just to keep them from walking around the street giving the product a bad name” (Kesey 19).

One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest

Setting can establish the atmosphere

“During the whole of a dull, dark, and soundless day in the autumn of the year, when the clouds hung oppressively low in the heavens, I had been passing alone, on horseback, through a singularly dreary tract of country” (Poe)

“The Fall of the House of Usher”

Guided Writing

Creative Writing PromptWrite the following four words on your

paper: Character Place Time Situation

Now chose four numbers between 1 and10. Write one number next to each of the four words. You may chose any numbers that

you want. They can be the same or different for each category.

Character

1. a new mother 2. a photographer 3. a recent high school graduate 4. a restaurant owner or manager 5. an alien from outer space 6. a homeless child 7. a 93-year-old woman 8. an environmentalist 9. a college student 10.a jazz musician

Setting: Place

1. near a National Forest 2. a wedding reception 3. a celebration party 4. an expensive restaurant 5. a shopping mall 6. a city park 7. the porch of an old farmhouse 8. a polluted stream 9. a college library 10.a concert hall

Setting: Time

1. during a forest fire 2. after a fight 3. the night of high school graduation 4. after a big meal 5. sometime in December 6. late at night 7. after a big thunderstorm has passed 8. in early spring 9. first week of the school year 10.during a concert

Situation/Challenge

1. an important decision needs to be made 2. a secret needs to be confessed to someone else 3. someone's pride has been injured 4. a death has occurred 5. someone has found or lost something 6. someone has accused someone else of doing

something wrong 7. reminiscing on how things have changed 8. someone feels like giving up 9. something embarrassing has just happened 10.someone has just reached an important goal

Establish the basics

Choose a POV Omniscient: The narrator knows

everything, including what each character is thinking, feeling, and doing throughout the story. 

3rd Person Limited: The narrator knows only the thoughts and feelings of a single character, while other characters are presented only externally.

1st Person: The narrator participates in action but sometimes has limited knowledge about both events outside of those in which he or she is directly involved and motivations that are not his or her own.

Outline a basic Plot Exposition: This will include

your setting: time and place Conflict: This will depend on

your situation or challenge Rising action: Events that

happen on the way to the climax

Climax: the most intense moment in your story

Falling action: What happened after the climax

Resolution: The information with which you leave your reader

Homework

Post #8: Guided Writing

Reading: “The Celebrated Jumping Frog of Calaveras County”

Study Terms: 1-8