“Reading the Novel”
Setting

Time



Place


Buildings, vehicles, clothing
Environment


Location like woods or at sea as well as city, country
Objects


Chronological time [the time from beginning to the end
of a story]
Novel time [the timeline in which events are presented –
may include flash backs or flash forwards]
Weather, lighting, temperature
Ambience

How do we feel about the setting?
Who is the narrator?


First person: Narrator as I
Third Person: He/She


Stream of consciousness


Narrator may be Omniscient [knows everything about everyone
inner thoughts as well as exterior actions], limited omniscient
[knows everything about some characters], intrusive [talks directly
to the reader and breaks flow of text], objective – recorder [acts
like a video camera so only records what is external])
Like a narrators thoughts flowing
across a page
Questions to ask yourself:



Who is telling the story?
Is this person in the story or
outside of the story?
Does the author ever intrude?
Reliable or unreliable narrators

Should we believe what the narrator tells us?


Sometimes a narrator is a character in the story and
may have an agenda or a reason to tell the story in a
certain way – for example, to make himself look
innocent.
What makes a narrator unreliable?


As readers, we have to decide why the author has a
character telling us a story, and we should pay attention
to this.
Often is the narrator is outside of the story, the narrator
may be more reliable, but that is not always the case.
Plot [order of events]
Exposition (who, what, where, when)
 Conflict (problem – there may be more than one)
 Climax (pivotal point in action)
 Resolution ( How it ends up)

Climax
Conflict
Resolution
Expo
Characters in novels have more depth

How do we learn about them?






Dialogue
Physical actions
Thoughts or mental actions
Judgment by others
Narrator judgment
Author’s judgment
Theme versus Overall Message

Theme: main topics of the book


Ex: Marriage
Overall Message: what we should think about the
topic?

Ex: Marriage sometimes makes people unhappy
Symbolism + Irony

Symbolism

Cultural symbols – commonly recognizable symbols


Personal symbols – must be figured out by reading the text


Irony

Swan = death if in the text when someone dies a character sees or
hears a swan
Dramatic Irony – when someone in the text or the audience
knows something another character does not.


Red rose = love or gold ring = marriage
For example, in one chapter the murder is illustrated so the reader
knows who did it but the other characters in the text don’t.
Circumstantial Irony – when situations occur that cause
surprise and chagrin.

For example, you have just bought a bus ticket and someone
offers you a free ride.
Narrative Precursors to the Novel
These stories led to the eventual creation of what we call the
modern novel. Essentially, smaller stories eventually got
linked into a longer whole.
 Heroic Epics : Gilgamesh, Homer’s Iliad and
Odyssey, Mahabharata, Valmiki’s Ramayana, Virgil’s
Aeneid, Beowulf, The Song of Roland
 Ancient Greek and Roman Romances and Novels: Ovid’s
metamorphosis
 Oriental Frame Tales :
Ramayana, A Thousand and One Nights
 Medieval European Romances : Arthurian tales culminating
in Malory’s Morte Darthur
 Novelle: Boccaccio’s Decameron, Margurerite
de Navarre’s Heptameron, Chaucer’s
Canterbury Tales
The First Novels








The Tale of Genji ( Japan, 11th c. )by Lady Murasaki Shikibu
Monkey, Water Margin, and Romance of Three Kingdoms (China,
16th c.)
Don Quixote ( Spain, 1605-15) by Miguel de Cervantes
The Princess of Cleves (France, 1678) by Madame de Lafayette
Love Letters between a Nobleman and His Sister (England,
1683) and Oroonoko (1688)by Aphra Behn
Robinson Crusoe (England, 1719) , Moll Flanders (1722) and A
Journal of the Plague Year (1722) by Daniel DeFoe
Pamela, or Virtue Rewarded (England, 1740-1742) by Samuel
Richardson
Joseph Andrews (England, 1742) and Tom Jones (1746)by Henry
Fielding
Journey to the West or Monkey
[one of the earliest novels]

Brief Description




supernatural novel with gods and demons
began with a series of oral and written versions
attained its most definitive version written by Wu
Ch'eng-en (1500?-1582)
Journey to the West is divided into three parts:



(1) an early history of the Monkey spirit;
(2) pseudo-historical account of Tripitaka's family and
life before his trip to fetch the sutras [scriptures] in the
Western Heaven;
(3)the main story, consisting of 81 dangers and
calamities encountered by Tripitaka and his three animal
spirit disciples - Monkey, Pigsy, and Sandy.