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Before you can write about a story or novel, you must first understand the author's point. This is sometimes hard because fiction is generally very complex and usually includes several points or themes. To discover these interwoven meanings, you must read the work closely. Below are three techniques for reading fiction actively and critically. Close reading takes more time than quick, superficial reading, but doing a close reading will save you from a lot of frustration and anxiety when you begin to develop your thesis.
CLOSE READING TECHNIQUES
1. Use these "tracking" methods to yield a richer understanding of the text and lay a solid ground work for your thesis.
- Use a highlighter, but only after you've read for comprehension. The point of highlighting at this stage is to note key passages, phrases, turning points in the story.
PITFALLS:
- Highlighting too much
- Highlighting without notes in the margins
2. Write marginal notes in the text.
- These should be questions, comments, dialogue with the text itself. A paragraph from Doris Lessing's short story "A Woman on a Roof" serves as an example:
Then they saw her, between chimneys, about fifty yards away. She lay face down on a brown blanket. They could see the top part of her: black hair, a flushed solid back, arms spread out.
"She's stark naked," said Stanley, sounding annoyed.
The second paragraph could have a note from the reader like this:
Why is the man annoyed by the sunbather? Is Lessing commenting on sexist attitudes?
3. Keep a notebook for freewrite summaries and response entries.
- Write quickly after your reading: ask questions, attempt answers and make comments about whatever catches your attention. A good question to begin with when writing response entries is "What point does the author seem to be making?"
STEPPING BACK. After close reading and annotating, can you now make a statement about the story's meaning? Is the author commenting on a certain type of person or situation? What is that comment?
IF YOU STILL DON'T KNOW:
Go to Part 2, #2 and try the approach outlined there.
- Once you've read the story or novel closely, look back over your notes for patterns of questions or ideas that interest you. Have most of your questions been about the characters, how they develop or change?
- For example, if you are reading Conrad's The Secret Agent, do you seem to be most interested in what the author has to say about society? Choose a pattern of ideas and express it in the form of a question and an answer such as the following:
Question: What does Conrad seem to be suggesting about early 20th century London society in his novel The Secret Agent?
Answer: Conrad suggests that all classes of society are corrupt.
PlTFALLS:
- choosing too many ideas.
- choosing an idea without any support.
Some terms that will help you:
A lot of literary terms describe how an author communicates his/her ideas. Look through the text and try to identify some of methods he/she conveys the patterns of ideas you are most interested in. The following terms will help you express the methods you see:
- characterization: the author's expression of a character's personality through the use of action, dialogue, thought, or commentary by the author or another character.
- conflict: the struggle within the story. Character divided against self, character against character, character against society, character against nature, character against God. Without it, there is no story.
- dialogue: vocal exchange between two or more characters. One of the ways in which plot, character, action, etc. is developed.
- imagery: the collection of images within a literary work. Used to evoke atmosphere, mood, tension. For example, images of crowded, steaming sidewalks flanking streets choked with lines of shimmering, smoking cars suggests oppressive heat and all the psychological tensions that go with it.
- point of view: the vantage point from which the author presents action of the story. Who is telling the story? An all-knowing author? A voice limited to the views of one character? The voice and thoughts of one character? Does the author change point of view in the story? Why? Point of view is often considered the technical aspect of fiction which leads the critic most readily into the problems and meanings of the story.
- symbol: related to imagery. It is something which is itself yet stands for or means something else. It tends to be more singular, a bit more fixed than imagery. For example, in Lessing's "A Woman on a Roof," the brief red sun suit seems to symbolize the woman's freedom and independence from externally imposed standards of behavior.
- tone: suggests an attitude toward the subject which is communicated by the words the author chooses. Part of the range of tone includes playful, somber, serious, casual, formal, ironic. Important because it designates the mood and effect of a work.
PITFALL:
- Spending too much time on devices that don't communicate the idea you want to focus on in your paper.
Once you have some general points to focus on, write your possible ideas and answer them.
For example:
Question: How does Conrad develop the idea that all classes of society are corrupt?Answer: He uses images of beasts and cannibalism whether he's describing socialites, policemen or secret agents.
To write your thesis statement, all you have to do is turn the question and answer around. You've already given the answer, now just put it in a sentence (or a couple of sentences) so that the thesis of your paper is clear.
Here's a good example:
In his novel, The Secret Agent, Conrad uses beast and cannibal imagery to describe the characters and their relationships to each other. This pattern of images suggests that Conrad saw corruption in every level of early twentieth century London society.
Now that you're familiar with the story or novel and have developed a thesis statement, you're ready to choose the evidence you'll use to support your thesis. There are a lot of good ways to do this, but all of them depend on a strong thesis for their direction.
Here's a student's thesis about Joseph Conrad's The Secret Agent:
In his novel, The Secret Agent, Conrad uses beast and cannibal imagery to describe the characters and their relationships to each other. This pattern of images suggests that Conrad saw corruption in every level of early twentieth century London society.
This thesis focuses on the idea of social corruption and the device of imagery. To support this thesis, you would need to find images of beasts and cannibalism within the text.
Here are a few steps to a solid paper:
1. Freewrite.
Without referring to the text or your notes, write for five or ten minutes on all the images (or device you have chosen to examine) you can recall. This will provide an initial "list" which will make up your body of evidence.
2. Review.
Look back through the text and your notes to further identify evidence, keeping focused on the particular device you want to discuss.
3. Research.
(Optional: Ask your instructor about outside sources before you use them.) Once you've identified enough textual evidence to support your thesis, you may want to see what other writers have had to say about your topic. This kind of appeal to other authorities helps you back up and interpret your reading of the work.
Hint: Don't go to the critics before you've developed a thesis and identified a solid body of evidence. If you read them too soon, you may permanently short-circuit your own ideas.
4. Evaluation.
You will probably generate more evidence than you can use. One way to decide which evidence to take and which to leave is to limit your choices to the best, most illustrative examples you can find. Focus on how the devices are used to develop major characters, major scenes, and major turning points in the work.
You've read and annotated the work, developed a thesis, and identified your evidence. Now you're ready to work your evidence into your draft. Here are three techniques on how and where to insert textual and secondary evidence into your paper.
5. Quoting.
This is taking a word, phrase or passage directly from the story, novel, or critical essay and working it grammatically into your discussion. Here's an example:
In his novel, The Secret Agent, Conrad describes Verloc as "undemonstrative and burly in a fat-pig style.... "(69) The pig image suggests that Verloc is not a lean, zealous anarchist, but is actually a corrupt, complacent middle class man who is interested in preserving his comfortable status.
Notice three things about the example above:
1) The passage from the novel is enclosed in quotes and the page number is indicated in parentheses.
2) The passage is introduced in a coherent grammatical style; it reads like a complete, correct sentence.
3) The quote is interpreted, not patched on and left for the reader to figure out what it means.
WHEN TO USE A QUOTE:
1. to make a particularly important point
2. when a passage or point is particularly well written
3. to include a particularly authoritative source
PITFALL:
- If you've used end-to-end quotes, you have made a mistake. All quotes must be introduced,discussed, and woven into the text. A good rule of thumb: Don't let your quotes exceed 25% of your text.
PARAPHRASING.
This is using your own words to say what the author said. To paraphrase the quote used above, you might say something like:
Conrad describes Verloc as a big man who isn't very expressive and who looks like a pig.
When to paraphrase:
Paraphrasing is useful in general discussion (introduction or conclusion) or when the author's original style is hard to understand.
Again, you would need to interpret the paraphrase just as you would a quote.
SUMMARIZING.
This is taking larger passages from the original work and summing them up in a sentence or two. To use the example above: Conrad uses pig imagery to describe Verloc's character.
When to use a summary:
Like paraphrasing, summary is useful in general discussion which leads up to a specific point and when you want to introduce the work and present the thesis.
PITFALLS TO AVOID These four common assumptions about writing about fiction interfere with rather than help the writer. Learn to avoid them!
1. Plot Summary Syndrome:
- Assumes that the main task is simply recalling what happened in detail. Plot summary is just one of the requirements of writing about fiction, not the intended goal.
2. Right Answer Roulette:
- Assumes that writing about fiction is a "no win" game in which the student writer is forced to try to guess the RIGHT ANSWER that only the professor knows.
3. The "Everything is Subjective" Shuffle:
- Assumes that ANY interpretation of any literary piece is purely whimsy or personal taste. Ignores the necessity of testing each part of an Interpretation against the whole text, as well as the need to validate each idea by reference to specifics from the text or quotation and discussion from the text.
4. The "How Can You Write 500 Words About One Short Story?" Blues:
- Assumes that writing the paper is only a way of stating the Answer rather than an opportunity to explore an idea or explain what your own ideas are and why you have them. This sometimes leads to "padding," repeating the same idea in different words or worse, indiscriminate "expert" quoting: using too many quotes or quotes that are too long with little or no discussion.
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Apostrophes
One of the greatest problems facing humanity today is the emergence of the rogue apostrophe. A rogue apostrophe is an apostrophe (one of these: ') that appears when it doesn't belong. Where do you use apostrophes? Apostrophes are used for two main reasons in English.
1. An apostrophe replaces a missing letter or letters. For example, the apostrophe in "don't" takes the place of the missing "o" in "do not." Words like "don't," "isn't," and "I'll" are called contractions.
2. Apostrophes are also used to show ownership. They make words possessive. For example, the phrase "Carl's dog" means "the dog belonging to Carl."
How to make a word possessive depends on whether the word is singular or plural. singular words: add 's. Carl's dog, the woman's pencil, Bevo's food
Note: Even if a singular word ends with an s, add 's to the end to show possession: Charles's book
plural words: o if the plural word ends with s, add ' (apostrophe alone): the teachers' lounge, the Andersons ' apartment if the plural word does not end with s, add 's: the children's cat.Common places where rogue apostrophes appear:
1. Sometimes people put apostrophes into words that end with s.
For example, often writers add apostrophes to plural words that are not possessive.
incorrect: The bug's sing and dance on the lawn.
correct: The bugs sing and dance on the lawn.Just because a word ends with an s does not mean it needs an apostrophe. Make sure that you only use apostrophes to show possession and in contractions.
2 . Some words always cause apostrophe trouble. This group includes his, hers, its, and theirs. These words are called possessive pronouns; they are pronouns with possession built into them already, so they do not need apostrophes.
incorrect: The dog plays with it's toy.
correct: The dog plays with its toy.
incorrect: The baby is their's.
correct: The baby is theirs.
This is a difficult thing to remember; many writers make apostrophe mistakes like these in free writing and first drafts. It is important to check your apostrophes before turning in a paper. Especially tricky words: *it's/its* These two words mean different things.
It's, with the apostrophe, is a contraction. It means "itis," and the apostrophe stands for the missing "i."
Its, without the apostrophe, is a possessive pronoun. For example, in "The bird fell out of its nest," its means "the bird's."
If you don't know which to use, try substituting "it is" in the place of it's/its. If you can use "it is", then it's is the right choice. Otherwise, use its.
incorrect: The dog plays with it is toy.
correct: The dog plays with its toy.*who's/whose*This pair is similar to it's/its. Who's, with an apostrophe, means "who is." ex: My friend John, who's a great dancer, is coming to the party.
Whose, without an apostrophe, is a possessive pronoun. ex: My friend John, whose mother is a doctor, is studying medicine. In the sentence above, whose refers to John; John's mother is a doctor. If you are unsure about which to use, substitute "who is" for who's/whose. If "who is" fits, use who's; if not, use whose.
incorrect: My friend John, who is mother is a doctor, is studying medicine.
correct: My friend John, whose mother is a doctor, is studying medicine.