Basic Features of Literary Works

B a s i c F e a t u r e s o f L i t e r a r y W o r k sWe experience stories much as we experience life—as it washes over us.Yet when we come to describe our experience of reading stories and share our interpretations,we refer to such things as character and theme.That is,we analyze the story,discussing its constituent elements in order to see how it works as a whole.The more carefully we examine these elements,the better we understand how the story comes to have meaning for us.Although there are also many extrinsic approaches to literature that relate the literary text to such topics as society,myth,history,the human psyche,the relations between men and women,generic expectations,and other texts,all of these approaches benefit from consideration of the following intrinsic features of a literary work: plot,characterization,point of view,setting,language,and theme.●PLOT.Plot is a narrative of events arranged in a time sequence.However,it is more than just a story line("The king died,and then the queen died,"to use E.M.Forster's famous example).Plot has causality("The king died,and then the queen died of grief),which means that a plot can be explained as well as described.A critical reader,therefore,does not simply recount the plot,telling what happens in it,but also analyzes the plot,conjecturing about why things happen as they do and interpreting what they mean.Thus,every plot detail carries significance for the active reader.●CHARACTERIZATION.Characterization,the creation of a fictional person,lies at the heart of realistic fiction(though it may be only a secondary element in romance or fantasy).Characters are revealed by their actions,speech,thoughts,physical appearance,the setting,and what we learn from the narrator or other characters.Not only does character generate plot and plot result from character,but character is the center of meaning and interest for the reader.Conflict takes place within a character or between characters.Whereas"flat characters"have but a single dimension,"rounded characters" are complex,contradictory,and capable of growth—much as real people are.What motivates characters and causes them to change gives us insight into human nature.In realistic fiction,a character's change of heart or increase in understanding can be a momentous event.●POINT OF VIEW.A story's point of view is the narrative voice in which the events are related.There are many variations,but two basic points of view predominate:first-person and third-person.In first-person narration,the author creates a character(who may be the central protagonist or just a bystander) and uses that character's voice to tell the story.Readers may be privy to the character's stream of consciousness or may know only what the character chooses to reveal.First-person narrators are often reliable,but not always;they are sometimes stupid or naive,and occasionally they even lie. It is up to the reader to decide into which category a narrator falls.When a story is told in the third person,the narrator does not participate in the action,and the narrative voice is not that of any of the characters.This voice may be omniscient—all-knowing,with free access to the motives,thoughts,and feelings of the characters—or it may be limited—with access to only one character's mind.It may also be journalistically objective,limiting itself to descriptions of external actions and events.●SETTING.The locale and period in which the action of a story takes place is its setting.The setting can make the story seem real or interesting,and it can also add to our understanding of the story's meaning.The setting may influence a character's behavior or reflect his or her state of mind.It may foreshadow events yet to happen or reinforce events that have already occurred.Often the language of the setting is highly evocative and even symbolic.●LANGUAGE.The language of literature,the words chosen to create a fictional world,is richly connotative or suggestive.Connotative words have an intricate texture of associations and implications.The various shadings of implications often make the meaning of a particular word ambiguous or uncertain.Some literary critics view ambiguous words as having multiple meanings that ultimately work together to reinforce a single,unified pattern of meaning;others see ambiguous words as wedges that reveal conflicting meanings within a text and expose the indeterminacy of its meaning.Literary language tends also to be highly ing language figuratively—as in metaphor and simile—involves departing from normal usage in order to extend or change aword's meaning.Here is a brief list of literary terms to describe some common figurative uses of language:—An image(a red rose)evokes sensory impressions to suggest a resemblance between the fictional and the phenomenal world.—Metaphor(my love is a red rose)and simile(my love is like a red rose)both use images to compare or transfer meaning from one object to another.—Metonymy(the rose that my love picked in the garden wilted in the heat)names one object(the literal rose)to throw light on another(the lover)with which it isassociated.—Symbols are more general terms used to extend the range of meaning of a word beyond its immediate,literal meaning.In the following poem by William Blake,forexample,the rose is used symbolically to refer to the destructions of love byhyprocrisy and deceit(among other possible meanings):0Rose,thou art sick!The invisible wormThat flies in the night,In the howling storm,Has found out thy bedOf crimson joy,And his dark secret loveDoes thy life destroy.THEME.Theme refers to the general ideas conveyed by the story through its language,plot, characterization,point of view,and setting.Themes may concern such abstractions or universals as life and death,illusion and reality,alienation and communion,money and greed,heroism and egotism,fate and free will.To find a story's themes or other kind of literary genre is to be analytical and creative at the same time.As we read,we infer a story's meanings;we read between the lines,making connections and drawing out implications.As we find our critical,interpretive voices,we approach conversation with the text;in that dialogue,meaning is forged and we discover what the story is about.。