Comp II
Short Stories Chapters 3, 4, & 5
Professor Vicky Neal
Comp II Chapters 3, 4, & 5
Chapter Three (142)
 Characterization
 “Everyday Use” (147)
 “Good Country People”
(457)
Chapter Four (192)
 Theme
 “Babylon Revisited” (199)
 “A Worn Path” (221)
 Chapter Five (235)
 Point of View
 “The Lottery” (259)
 “The Jilting of Granny
Weatherall” (267)
 “Hills Like White
Elephants” (275)
Chapter Three
Characterization
The various literary means by which
characters are presented
Direct Presentation
The method of characterization in which
the author, by exposition or analysis, tells
us directly what a character is like, or has
someone else in the story to do so.
Indirect Presentation
Literary Fiction
Method of characterization in which
the author shows us a character in
action, compelling us to infer what the
character is like from what is said or
done by the character
Dramatized
 Commercial Fiction
Characters are shown speaking &
behaving as in a stage play
Three Principles of Characterization
First
Characters are consistent in their
behavior
Second
Characters words and actions spring
from motivations the reader can
understand and believe
Three Principles of Characterization
Third
Characters must be plausible or
lifelike.
Flat Characters- distinguishing moral
qualities or personal traits are summed
up in one or two traits
• A character who has not
been fully developed
• A two-‐dimensional
character
• A simple character; a
character who is too
obviously all good or all bad
Round Character – distinguishing
moral qualities or personal traits are
complex and many-sided
• A character who has been
fully developed by the
author
• A three-dimensional
character; a realistic
character
• A complex character, a
character with strengths
and weaknesses
Stock Character
 Special kind of flat
character- like
interchangeable
parts
 Stereotyped
figures who have
recurred so often
in fiction that we
recognize them at
once.
 Strong, silent
sheriff, the brilliant
detective with
eccentric habits,
the mad scientist,
glamorous
international spy,
cruel stepmother,
etc.
Static Character
Character remains
essentially the
same person from
the beginning of
the story to the
end
Dynamic or Developing Character
 Character undergoes
some distinct change of
character, personality, or
outlook.
 The change may be large
or small; positive or
negative; significant and
basic; not minor change
of habit or opinion
Epiphany
 Moment of
spiritual insight
into life, or into the
character’s own
circumstances.
 The “ah-ha”
moment
Change in Character
Three Conditions
1. It must be consistent with the individual’s
characterization as dramatized in the
story
2. It must be sufficiently motivated by the
circumstances in which the character is
placed
3. The story must offer sufficient time for
the change to take place and skill be
believable
Chapter Four
Theme
 The central idea or unifying
generalization implied or stated
by a literary work
 To derive the theme - determine
what its central purpose is: what
view of life it supports or what
insight into life it reveals
Theme
 Not all stories have a significant theme
 Theme exists in virtually all literary fiction, but only
in some commercial fiction.
 In literary fiction, it is the primary purpose of the
story; in commercial fiction, it is usually less
important than such elements are plot and
suspense.
 Whatever central generalization about life arises
from the specifics of the story constitutes the
theme.
Theme
 May be stated very briefly or at greater length
 Is what gives a story its unity
 Is sometimes explicitly stated or can be implied
 The function of literary writers
 is not to state a theme but to vivify it
 They wish to deliver it not simply to our intellects
but to our emotions, our senses, and our
imaginations.
Theme Exists Only:
 1. when an author has seriously attempted to
record life accurately or to reveal some truth
about it or
 2. when an author has deliberately introduced
as a unifying element some concept or theory
of life that the story illuminates
Term “Theme”
 First – it is less likely to obscure the fact that a
story is not a preachment or a sermon: a story’s
first object is enjoyment
 Second – it should keep us from trying to wring
from every story a didactic pronouncement
about life
Purpose
 Of literacy story writers is to give us
a greater awareness and a greater
understanding of life, not to
incluate a code of moral rules for
regulating daily conduct.
To Get at Theme of a Story
Ask NOT:
What does this story teach?
Ask:
What does this story reveal?
Commercial Story Themes
 Confirm their reader’s prejudices,
endorse their opinions, ratify their
feelings, and satisfy their wishes.
 Represent life as we would like it to
be.
Literary Story Themes
 Are likely to question these beliefs
and often to challenge them.
 Represent rather somber truths.
 We do not have to accept the
theme of a story.
Discovering Theme
The ability to state theme is a test of our
understanding of a story.
There is no prescribed method for
discovering theme.
 What way the main character has changed
 Explore the nature of the central conflict and
its outcome
 Sometimes the title will provide a clue
Principles to Discovering Theme
1
 Theme should be expressible in the
form of a statement with a subject
and a predicate.
Principles to Discovering Theme
 2.
 The theme should be stated as a
generalization about life.
Principles to Discovering Theme
 3.
 Be careful not to make the
generalization larger than is justified
by the terms of the story.
Principles to Discovering Theme
 4.
 Theme is the central and unifying
concept of a story.
Principles to Discovering Theme
 5.
 There is no one way of stating the
theme of a story.
Principles to Discovering Theme
 6.
 We should avoid any statement that
reduces the theme to some familiar
saying that we have heard all our
lives.
Chapter Five
Point of View
 The angle of
vision from
which a story is
told
Four Basic Points of View
Omniscient
Third-person Limited
First Person
Objective
Omniscient
 The author tells the story using the
third person, knowing all and free
to tell us anything. Including what
the characters are thinking or
feeling and why they act as they do.
Third-Person Limited
 The author tells the story using the
third person, but is limited to a
complete knowledge of one
character in the story and tells us
only what that one character
thinks, feels, sees, or hears.
First-Person
 The story is told by one of its
characters, using the first person.
Objective
 Or Dramatic point of view
 The author tells the story using the
third person, but is limited to
reporting what the characters say
or do; the author does not interpret
the characters’ behavior or tell us
their private thoughts or feelings.
“Everyday Use”
 Characterization
 Mrs. Johnson
 Dee
 Maggie
By- Alice Walker
“Good Country People
 Characterization
 Joy/Hulga
 Mrs. Hopewell
 Mrs. Freeman
By- Flannery O’Connor
“Babylon Revisited”
 Theme
 Inescapability of the past
 Purity of paternal love
 By- F. Scott Fitzgerald
“A Worn Path”
 Theme
 Love – perseverance
 Redemption
 Racial prejudice
 By – Eudora Welty
“The Lottery”
 Point of View
 3rd Person
 Objective
 By – Shirley Jackson
“The Jilting of Granny Weatherall”
 Point of View
 3rd Person
 By – Katherine Anne Porter
“Hills Like White Elephants”
 Point of View
 3rd Person
Fly-on-the-wall
 By – Ernest Hemingway