1. “Reading the Novel”

2. Setting  Time 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]  Place Location like woods or at sea as well as city, country  Objects Buildings, vehicles, clothing  Environment Weather, lighting, temperature  Ambience How do we feel about the setting?

3. Who is the narrator?  First person: Narrator as I  Third Person: He/She 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])  Stream of consciousness 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?

4. 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.

5. 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 ) Expo Conflict Resolution Climax

6. 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

7. 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

8. Symbolism + Irony  Symbolism Cultural symbols – commonly recognizable symbols  Red rose = love or gold ring = marriage Personal symbols – must be figured out by reading the text  Swan = death if in the text when someone dies a character sees or hears a swan  Irony Dramatic Irony – when someone in the text or the audience knows something another character does not.  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.

9. 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

10. 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

11. 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.