In order to gain access to the deepest layers of meaning that a short story or novel holds, and thus invite and tend a rich and interesting comprehension of what the ‘word-artist’ and the artful text’s rich ‘parallel world’ tapestry of scenes and characters and incidents can give (and give access to) a reader, one must come to ‘handle’ the literary object of inspection with great familiarity. Knowledge (the systematic arrangment and networking of information, observation, experience, and understanding, both theoretical and practical) only comes with close, patient familiarization with objects, architectures, processes, dynamics, systems, contexts, environments, ecologies. As we work through the magic objects of fiction, imagine being like a watchmaker who comes to appreciate an old watch through a careful game of close inspection: turning the piece over and over in hand, scrutinizing its specific details, noting its unique marks, mapping its intricate form, positions, functions, processes. From such close inspection comes the confidence to take that watch apart and put it back together again. In reading a literary narrative, we can be quite systematic in recording our emergent understandings, like such a patient watchmaker.
Similarly, a well-made story is rather like a fine cello or a stunning cotillion dance: it is a cultural artifact of intricate patterns and elements and dynamics, a twice-crafted, thrice-finessed artifact that organizes ideas and sensations, images and associations into a singular coherence. In order to understand such a work of feeling, thought, crafted effort intimately (the goal of true and abiding knowledge), one must carefully, respectfully “take it apart” non-destructively. This means using a systematic mapping process which names each component of the structure (whether story or cello or sarabande), lists a definition of each component, and accounts for the relationships among the sum of such components. Such a process—for narratives at any rate—is listed below. This template is tuned for fictions, and can be used to map any and every short story, novella, or novel, and even novel-cycle/series. (With a few adjustments, it can also be turned toward mapping any narrative, literary or non-literary.)
You should strive to answer each question as completely as your understanding allows. Use complete, grammatical sentences (of 10 or more words), and be as specific, as precise as you can in your word-choice. Some of these questions and research tasks will require more sentences than others (for example, questions 1 and 9 are relatively simple compared to questions 10 and 35). In your response, re-type each question, leave a space, then type in your answer. So that your notes will have a formal precision and formatting, each separate profile should carry the ID Box in the top left corner of your document and have a centered title in the format “Structural Analysis of X’s Y”: for example, Structural Analysis of Helprin’s “A Brilliant Idea and His Own.” Please fully cite and list all quotations and outside information sources.
These questions, and the vocabulary and references tasks at the end of them, are intended to help you focus your understanding, exteriorize and articulate your thinking, and provide highly-focused material for future critical essays. For from the detailed array of your answers here, one can easily cut-and-paste a detailed passage or three into an essay draft, thereby honoring your researches and also saving time and effort in the construction of a critical analysis. As they say in the great dojo of thinking: here is a place where more is better and less is dangerous. Thus, quoting passages directly from the text as parts of a more precise and detailed answer is highly advisable. Even in this work-through profile format, you should strive to maintain accurate citation methods, so don’t forget the in-text parenthetical formatting for each summary, paraphrase, mention, direct quotation.
- What is the title of the fiction?
- Who wrote this work?
- What is the full MLA citation for this work?
- Where did you find it?
- When and where was it originally published?
- What other works has the writer published?
- What culture(s) is (are) most important to the writer?
- What structures, levels, and dynamics of society are most important to the writer?
- What are your particular sources for this information (6-8)? Give the full MLA source
citation for each resource.
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2--Structure
- Into how many sections/segments is the narrative divided (generally signaled by extra
space between text blocks and/or special symbol i.e. /*/ Or some other icon)? - What is the ‘story’ of each section? What happens? (50-100 words for summary of
each section) - What is the overall story? What kind of story is it? (100-200 words)
- Who are the characters? (main, secondary, and supporting; protagonists/antagonists;
s/heroes, villains, hapless onlookers, background populations) - What are the settings of place? (geographical locations, countries, landscapes, cities,
districts, neighborhoods, dwellings, vehicles) - What are the settings of time? (epoch, era, age; century, decade, year; season,
month, week, day; hour, minute, moment) - From what perspectives or points-of-view does the story unfold? (omniscient—
unlimited, god-like; limited—to objective, multi-person view; limited—to one or two
consciousnesses; constrained to sectors and flows, habits and behaviours of one
consciousness, from the 'inside.') - What kind of narrator does the fiction have? (traditional, authoritative, and
trustworthy; modern, partial, and unreliable; postmodern, fractal, and indeterminate)
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3--Interpretations
- What are the main character’s dilemmas, challenges, conflicts? (imbalance between
desire and duty, collision between status and opportunities, crises in decision and
action) - What needs, desires, dreams, duties, opportunities motivate the characters?
(companionship, love, lust, dream, duty, obligation, anger, passion, reason,
circumstances, social class, cultural role, political agency, economic status) - How does each of the characters meet the challenges facing her or him? (bravely,
soberly, reasonably; defensively, hesitantly, tentatively, reluctantly; head-on, at an
angle, through an intermediary?) What specific passage is the best ‘signal’ of how
each character reacts to circumstances and thus reveals her deepest or truest nature? - How does she or he solve the dilemmas, address the conflicts, accommodate to new
life circumstances? What specific scene, dialog, or passage of interior thought best
reveals this aspect of the character? - What is the story’s theme, its inner-most concern, its framing idea? What particular
passage(s) state or suggest this theme most strongly? - What is the literary tradition of the story, its structural genre?
- What is the particular style and aesthetic quality of language in the story?
- How does the tone/mood of the language influence your understanding?
- What is the fiction’s key message (about the self, others, groups, communities,
societies, cultures, worlds, time, life)? - What is the fiction’s essential argument, its critique of the world, its fundamental
philosophical assertion about human experiencing of life? - What effects do the writer’s style create in your experiencing of the story world, in
your understanding of how such ‘micro-worlds’ are created in the first place? - What other works of literature or art does this story remind you of? Why? What
specific points of comparison can you list? - What other works of art, film, philosophy, memoir, or history does the fiction call to
mind? Why? What are the significant points of the comparison, connection? - What three to ten works of literary history, analysis, or criticism did you find to help
you comprehend the structure, style, ideas, and contexts (social, political, economic,
cultural, and historical) of this story? (List these resources in MLA-2016 format, and
give a brief annotated summary of each work. You may also want to use a research
profile template (RP) to sift these works for particular ideas, quotations, and
references which you can use in any analysis project on this fiction.)