Text Analysis
Session Two
Jens Kirk, Dept. of Languages
and Culture
Agenda
 Repair Work
 An Introduction to story, plot, character, and
characterization
 Group Work: analysing plot
 Group presentations and discussions
Jens Kirk, Dept. of Languages
and Culture
Repair work
Questions and comments from students
Jens Kirk, Dept. of Languages
and Culture
An Introduction to story and plot
 Story/ fabula/
the level of
the told = the
chronological
sequence of
events and
actions
Jens Kirk, Dept. of Languages
and Culture
Plot/ sjuzhet/
discourse/ the level of
the telling = the events
and actions as ordered or
designed towards
acheiving particular
artistic and emotional
effects
A famous example of plot: Julius Caesar’s message to the Roman
senate describing his recent victory in the Battle of Zela (47 BC).
Veni, vidi, vici (He came, he saw, he
conquered)
Story = The Battle of Zela
Plot/ sjuzhet/ discourse/ the level of the
telling = Caesar’s telling, rendering, and
ordering of that chronological sequence of
events
Jens Kirk, Dept. of Languages
and Culture
The story / plot model
Story
(future)
Plot
(beginning)
He came
Story
(past)
Jens Kirk, Dept. of Languages
and Culture
Plot
(middle)
He saw
Plot
(end)
He
conquered
Four levels of design in plot
 Order: beginning, middle, and end


Chronology
Anachrony: flashback (analepsis), flash
forward (prolepsis)
 Ellipsis: Gaps, omissions, absences
 Duration: the time of the telling and the time
of the told
 Frequency: the number of times an event is
told
Jens Kirk, Dept. of Languages
and Culture
Another way of discussing plot
 Rising action
 Exposition – an initial situation of stasis in the life of the
hero
 Complication – something unsettling happens in the
hero´s life. A conflict between the protagonist and
antagonist develops.
 Climax – the high point of the hero´s fortunes
 Falling action
 Crisis – the turning point of the hero’s fortunes
 Catastrophe/ denoument – mysteries, conflicts,
misunderstandings are cleared away.
Jens Kirk, Dept. of Languages
and Culture
Plot and ”I Spy”: storyline 1
 Rising action
 Exposition – ?
 Complication – happiness unsetteled at school: the
other boys begin mocking him for not smoking.
 Climax – (After descending the stairs in order to steal
a smoke,) Charlie eventually puts a cigarette in his
mouth, looks around for matches
 Falling action


Crisis – but someone suddenly enters the shop
Catastrophe/ denoument – and after some time Charlie
goes back to his room without having smoked a
cigarette.
Jens Kirk, Dept. of Languages
and Culture
Plot and ”I Spy”: storyline 2
 Rising action
 Exposition – Charlie loves his mother, who is always
present, but not his father, who is mostly absent
 Complication – his father suddenly becomes present
and Charlie discovers that his father is ”very like
himself”
 Climax – and that he would llike to tell him that he
loves him
 Falling action
 Crisis – but Charlie can’t since his father is absent
again.
 Catastrophe/ denoument – Charlie is alone in the
house with his mother
Jens Kirk, Dept. of Languages
and Culture
An Introduction to character and
characterisation
 Character = a
 Characterisation = how
represented person
 Protagonist, hero,
heroine, antagonist,
villain, foil
 Two aspects of
character: inner and
outer
a person is represented
 Showing (the dramatic
method)
 Telling (the intrusive
method)
Jens Kirk, Dept. of Languages
and Culture
Story, Plot, Character, Characterisation
and Theme
 Plot and characterisation are ways of
designing a theme in order to pursuade your
readers about it. What does Greene want to
pursuade us about?
 Why does his plot have two storylines? And
what do they have in common?
 Failure – is Green suggesting that we’re
doomed to fail in our relations with other
people and ourselves?
Jens Kirk, Dept. of Languages
and Culture
Jack London, ”The Law of Life”
 Map out the events according to the story /
plot model
 What the point in rendering and ordering the
events and actions in theis manner?
Jens Kirk, Dept. of Languages
and Culture
Jeanete Winterson, ”The 24-Hour
Dog”
 Map out the events according to the story /
plot model
 What the point in rendering and ordering the
events and actions in theis manner?
Jens Kirk, Dept. of Languages
and Culture