Aspects of Works of Fiction
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1. The novel is a "book-length story in prose" (213) in which the author tells every relevant part of the story at length, while the short story generally focuses on "vivid or dramatic moments" or "scenes" (8) in which the message of the story is contained. The short story "shows" rather than "tells" these dramatic moments due to the brevity of the form, while the novel includes extended explanatory or narrative passages along with its own dramatic moments. Every part of a fine short story is significant to the story, while the novel can contain much that is perhaps only peripheral to the story. Usually the short story focuses on a single important moment of discovery on the part of a character or characters, while the novel covers much more time and narrative territory, including many such moments of discovery.2. Setting can help the reader to understand a character by grounding the character in a real time and place and by leading to conditions which cause the character to have to act, revealing his or her character (80). A story set in a prison or during a revolution will likely force a character to take action (or fail to take action) which he would not have to consider with urgency in a more tranquil setting. The setting "can make things happen. It can prompt characters to act, bring them to realizations, or cause them to reveal their inmost natures" (80). The reader who relates to a specific setting---such as the moon landing or the JFK assassination---will relate more
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this theme to the reader while noting that he and his mates never discussed it openly.
8. The objective narrator does not enter the minds of characters, but describes events as they occur in the material world only. An example of this objective narration is found in Hemingway's "The Killers," which leaves the reader wondering much about what has occurred previous to the story's events, and what the feelings and thoughts of the characters are. The omniscient narrator tells what is happening both in the world of events and in the internal world of the characters' minds. An example of this point of view is found in Jack London's "To Build a Fire," in which the author tells us what is happening as the man tries to survive the bitter cold, as well as what is going on inside the minds of both the man and his dog.
9. Aristotle's Poetics describes the author's views on what comprises poetry and drama and what the purposes of these forms are or should be. For example, in the excerpt on tragedy, Aristotle writes of the power of the drama to purge the emotions of the audience, or to provide a catharsis for those emotions. For this catharsis to take place in dramatic tragedy, for example, Aristotle says that pity and fear must be provoked in
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Approximate Word count = 2282
Approximate Pages = 9 (250 words per page)
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