ENGL 231: Children's Literature

JC Clapp, North Seattle Community College

Guidelines for Analyzing and Writing about Fiction
This information was originally written by Terri Chung at NSCC and is used here with her permission.

 Analyzing Plot

When we lose ourselves in fiction, are we caught up in the story or its plot? Do plot and story mean the
same thing? In Aspects of the Novel, E.M. Forster distinguishes between story and plot with this
illustration:

“The king died, and then the queen died” is a story. “The king died, and then the queen died of grief” is a
plot.

If an event takes place in a story, we say, “and then?” If it is in a plot we ask, “why?” A plot is the artful
arrangement of incidents in a story, with each incident building on the next in a series of causes
and effects. The plot is not the action itself, but the way the author arranges the action toward a specific
end. The manner in which the events are told (i.e. chronologically or through flashbacks) is important to
pay attention to, for it can be a clue as to the writer’s purpose in the writing. What happens and the
order in which we are told it happens sets up a narrative tensions.

When reading a work of fiction, always ask yourself:

· Why is this happening now?
· How does this event relate to what’s gone before?
· What expectations are being set up for what will happen next?
· How does the plot unfold? Does it include flashbacks? Is there any foreshadowing?

The meaning found in literary fiction arise out of some sort of conflict—a clash of actions, ideas,
desires, or wills. Characters may be pitted against some other person or group of persons (conflict of
person against person); they may be in conflict with some external force—physical nature, society, or
“fate” (conflict of person against environment); or they may be in conflict with some elements in their own
natures (conflict of person against himself or herself). The conflict may be physical, mention, emotional,
or moral.

Because plot revolves around some kind of conflict (between characters, within in characters, etc.), pay
attention to the ways the conflict is resolved. This resolution or lack of resolution will give you a
sense of a theme the writer is exploring. A story with an indeterminate ending, one in which no
definitive conclusions is reached, may be intended to have us ponder the complexities of life.

Stages of Plot Development: In most stories the beginning sets up the problem or conflict; the middle
is where the author introduces various complications that that prolong suspense and make the struggle
more meaningful; and the end resolves the conflict to a great or lesser degree. Here’s a more detailed
breakdown of a typical plot structure:

1) exposition: introduces character, scene, time and situation.

2) rising action: the dramatization of events that complicate the situation and gradually intensity the
conflict.
3) climax: the turning point of the story, its emotional high point.
4) falling action: where the problem or conflict presented in the earlier sections proceeds toward
resolution.
5) conclusion: where author brings the sequence of related events to an end. The conflict may or
may not be resolved.
  Analyzing Characterization

The characters in a work of fiction drive the story. Their personalities and conflicts set up what
happens. The way a narrator describes a character gives us a sense of who they are, but w also learn
about characters through their words and actions. As you read, look for consistency or lack of
consistency in a character’s words or actions. If the character seems to act differently, ask yourself
why. How is this change of behavior reflected in other elements of the story? Is there irony in these
contrasts?

Authors present their characters either directly or indirectly. In direct presentation, they tell us straight
out, by exposition or analysis, what the characters are like, or they have another character in the story
describe them. In indirect presentation, the author shows us the characters through their actions; we
determine what they are like by what they say or do. The direct method usually has little emotional
impact unless bolstered by the indirect. In almost all good fiction, therefore, the characters
are dramatized.

Most stories have at least one central character (also called main or major character, hero/heroine,
or protagonist), the persona around whom the story revolves. The story’s conflict often revolves
around this protagonist. Many stories also have at least one minor character, who is not the focus of
the story but who still plays an important role. Sometimes characters provide contrasts with one
another.

In his book Aspects of the Novel (1927), the British novelist E.M Forster introduced terms that have
become standard in discussing types of characters; he wrote that a literary character is either “round” or
“flat.” Flat characters usually have only one or two predominant traits; they can be summed up in a
sentence or two. By contrast, round characters are complex and many-sided; they have the three-
dimensional quality of real people.

Fictional characters may also be classified as either static or developing. The static character remains
essentially the same person from the beginning of the story to the end. The developing (or
dynamic)character, on the other hand, undergoes some distinct change of character, personality, or
outlook. The change may be a large or a small one; it may be positive or negative; but it is something
significant and basic, not some minor change of habit or opinion. Examining if, how, and why the
protagonist (or another character) in the story develops or transforms throughout the course of the
story can often be quite revealing about the story’s key theme(s).

Asking Questions about Character

One of the best ways to achieve an understanding of characters can be to ask yourself a series of
questions. By answering some or all of the following questions about the characters in a fictional story,
you may discover an aspect of the story/novel that you would like to analyze.
Note: Not all of the questions will apply to every story/novel you read.

Main character(s):
1. Who is the main character (or main characters, if there is more than one)?
a. What is significant about how the main character is described?
b. What are the main character’s significant actions? What motivates the character to
behave in this way?
c. What are the character’s significant spoken words? Why are they significant?
d. What are the main character’s inner thoughts and feelings?
e. What do the others characters in the story say or think about this character? How do they
react to the person?

Choices
2. Does the main character have choices?
a. If so, how do the choices help you understand the story?
 b. If not, what is the significance of the lack of choice?

Conflicts
3. Is there an internal conflict, for example, is the character struggling with inner impulses that are
difficult to control? With a guilty conscience? Having conflict feelings?
4. Is there an external conflict, for example, is the character struggling against another character?
Against nature? Against society? Against fate?

Changes
5. Does the main character undergo changes?
a. If so, how do the changes help you understand the story?
b. If not, what is the significance of the lack of changes?

Minor character(s)
6. Who are the minor characters?
a. What is significant about how they react to the main character?
b. What is significant about how the main character reacts to the minor characters?
c. What is significant about what the minor characters say to or think about the main
character?

 Analyzing Setting

The term setting refers to a story’s place, time, social environment, and physical
environment. The setting is often connected to character development and/or to the values of the
society in which a story is set. Setting can even have a direct effect on characters and
action. Characters’ attitude and behavior may be influenced by the time and place in which they
live. Characters’ emotional states can be affected by the physical environment.

Setting is created primarily through images. Often an aspect of the setting is actually a symbol
representing something else. For example, a wall can symbolize a barrier of communication between
two people. Therefore when you discuss setting you often discuss imagery and symbolism.

Asking Questions about Setting

One effective way to generate ideas about a story’s setting can be to ask yourself a series of
questions. By answering some or all of the following questions about the setting in a story, you may
discover an aspect of the story that you would like to analyze.
Note: Not all of the questions will apply to every novel/story you read.

Place
1. What is the significant about where the story takes place?
· The geographical location (i.e. the country or city)
· The size and type of location (i.e. a large city or a small village)
· The site of the action (i.e. indoors or outdoors, a room or a street)

Time
2. How long does it take for the action to occur (i.e. several years or only an hour)? Is there
anything significant about the length of time it takes the sequence of events/thoughts to occur?
3. What is significant about the time of day in which the story takes place (may be revealed
through actual clock time or through description of light, darkness, and shadows, or through
activities such as eating supper)?
 4. What is significant about the time of year in which the story takes place (i.e. through references
to the seasons)?
5. What is significant about the year(s) or the historical period in which the story takes place?

Social environment
6. What is significant about the manners, customs, rules, and/or moral codes of the society in
which the story takes place?

Physical environment
7. Which physical details reveal the emotional or moral state(s) of the character(s)? (Examine
references to nature, objects, buildings and rooms, clothing, climate and weather, sounds,
smells, and so on.)
8. Which physical details reveal the nature of the relationship between or among characters?

 Analyzing Point of View

Point of view is a literary term that refers to the perspective from which a story is told. An author
creates a narrator to tell the story, someone who may or may not be a character in the story. It is
through the narrator’s perspective (through the narrator’s eyes and mind) that readers learn what
happens in the story. Point of view is a technique and the narrator is a device that an author uses to
influence the way a reader interprets the story.

The narrator who tells the story from a first-person perspective

 may be the main character
 may be a minor character
 may be an adult looking back on childhood (resulting in a “dual” or “double” point of view: the
perspective of the child and the perspective of the adult narrator)

The narrator who tells the story from a third-person perspective

 may be all-knowing (omniscient): telling everything about all of the characters, including their
inner thoughts
 may have limited knowledge of the characters: telling the inner thoughts of only one or two
character
 may be only an external observer: describing events objectively from the outside

The narrator
 is not the author (even in a semi-autobiographical work, the narrator is not the same as the
author)
 may be unreliable
 does not necessarily hold or reflect the author’s view

It is important to remember that even if the narrator knows almost everything about every character, the
narrator is still limited in some way (since all human beings are limited in some way). It is only by
piercing together several or all of the elements of fiction that you can move toward an understanding of
the author’s view.

Asking Questions about Point of View

One effective way to generate ideas about point of view can be to ask yourself a series of questions. By
answering some or all of the following questions about the point of view of a story, you may discover an
aspect of the story that you would like to analyze.
Note: Not all of the questions will apply to every story or novel you read.
Identifying point of view
1. Is the story told from a first-person point of view or from a third-person point of view?
2. Is the narrator a major character, a minor character, or a nonparticipant? Is there more than one
narrator?
3. If the narrator is the main character,
a. Is the story from the perspective of an adult, an adolescent, or a child?
b. Is the story from a dual point of view (for example, through the perspective of the adult
narrator and the child that the narrator used to be?
4. How much does the narrator know about the main character?
5. How much does the narrator know about the minor characters?
6. Does the narrator analyze or comment on the action and/or characters? Or is the narrator simply an
objective observer?

Analyzing point of view

7. How reliable is the narrator?
a. What is the narrator’s background?
b. What is the narrator’s relationship to the other characters?
c. How did the narrator acquire the information that is presented? Are the sources reliable?
d. Is there anything unique or special about the way the narrator presents the information that
suggests something about the narrator’s character?
e. Does the narrator seem to be withholding information or ignoring significant facts?
f. Is the narrator emotionally involved in any of the situations?
g. Does the narrator reveal any prejudice toward any of the characters?
h. Does the narrator ever seem confused?
i. If the narrator comments on the characters or action, are the comments valid?
j. Does the narrator undergo any changes that affect the information?
k. What is your overall impression of the narrator?

8. Why do you think the author has chosen this point of view? ? Do we gain something from this the
narrator’s perspective that we might not discover elsewhere? How would the story be different if it
were told from another point of view?

 Analyzing Imagery

Imagery refers to the collection of images in a work of fiction: the mental pictures created by the author’s
words. These words often carry suggestive meaning in addition to their literal meaning; writers use
concrete images to go beyond physical description in order to express feelings and states of mind. Most
images are created through words that appeal to readers’ senses of sight, sound, taste, smell, and
touch. For example, a pink flower may appeal to a reader’s sense of sight or smell and bring forth
pleasant associations with springtime or a holiday memory.
Asking Questions about Imagery:
1. Which words appeal to the sense of sight? Sound? Taste? Smell? Touch?

2. Does one type of image predominate? For example, are most of the images related to sight, or
to sound?
a. If one sense predominates, how is this connected to the rest of the story?
· Do the dominant sensory images reinforce a major idea or impression?
· Do the dominant sensory images conflict with a major idea or impression?
b. If there is a mixture of images, with no one sense predominating, how is this connected to
the rest of the story?
· Does the mixture of sensory images reinforce a major idea or impression?
· Does the mixture of sensory images conflict with a major idea or impression?
c. If there is a change from one type of image to another, how is this connected to the rest of
the story?
· Does the change reflect a change in a character or an idea?
· Does the change parallel a development in the plot?
· What does the change reveal about the story’s meanings?
d. If the images show a specific pattern (for example, images of color, or images of natural
scenes), what is the significance of this pattern?

3. Do the images have positive or negative connotations? How are these positive or negative
connotations connected to the story’s meanings?

 Analyzing Symbolism

A symbol is something that represents something else. Often in a literary work, a symbol is an image of
an event or a physical object (a thing, person, or place) that is used to represent something invisible or
abstract such as an idea, a value, or an emotion. Authors use symbols to suggest meaning. One
symbol may suggest more than one meaning.

The setting can be a major source of symbols. Trees and grain growing near a river, for example, may
suggest life or fertility. Areas without any growth may suggest decay or death. A sound of dance music
may suggest joy; the sound of beating drums may signal fear. Light may suggest knowledge; darkness
may suggest ignorance.

Although there are numerous possibilities, not all objects or events in stories are symbols. Some objects
or events are just what they are described or defined to be and have no second or third meaning.

To determine whether an object is a symbol of something else, begin with the literal meaning of the
object. After you have determined the literal meaning, ask if the object has some universal
symbolism. For example, rain after a long period of drought can symbolize rebirth or renewal or
regeneration in many parts of the world.

If you do not recognize universal symbolism, ask if the object has some cultural symbolism. For
example, a certain style of dress may represent a particular social class in a particular culture.

If you do not discover cultural symbolism, ask yourself if the object has some unique meaning within
the context of the story. For example, a flashing light may represent a character’s sudden
understanding of something.
If you do not discover any second meaning, you may assume that the object is not necessarily a symbol
of anything.