The things they carry
This week we will explore important elements of narrative: plot, point of view, tone, setting, character, and symbolism.
Remember that writers use these devices to communicate their theme: the overall message of their work.
Strong literary analysis takes into consideration all of these elements and how they relate to one another. Although some literary elements in a given piece of writing may seem more significant than others, all of these components consistently contribute to a text’s overall theme. It is your job to define the writer’s theme and to pick out elements that the writer uses to communicate his/her message.
The Week 2 assignment requires that you consider the connections between literary elements and that you apply your analytical skills to developing a coherent argument that defines the theme of a short story. Make sure your paper has a defined introduction with a thesis statement, supporting paragraphs with clear topic sentences, and a conclusion.
Introduction:
Your introductory paragraph should state:
• which story and author you will be writing about (remember that you introduce the full name of the author in your introduction, but after that, you refer to the author by his or her last name. Also, the names of short stories appear in quotation marks, “The Secret Life of Walter Mitty”)
• mention the two literary elements you will be describing.
• briefly summarize the characters, the conflict, and how that leads to the theme. DO NOT TELL THE PLOT! You are not writing a book report.
• Your thesis statement should be the last sentence of the introductory paragraph. It should tell the reader how the literary elements contribute to the larger narrative theme in the story. An example of an effective thesis statement would be: “In Ernest Hemingway’s Hills Like White Elephants, character and symbolism are used to explain how challenging life decisions can be.”
Remember to include:
2 to 4 pages of text (in 12 pt Times New Roman font, double spaced)
Title page (following APA style formatting)
Reference page (following APA style formatting)
2 sources other than your textbook (The Ashford Online Library is a great place to start when looking for sources. You can use JSTOR, Project Muse, Proquest, or other databases to search for information.)
Theme and Narrative
When you are identifying the theme, remember that the theme in fiction is associated with something abstract and broad. The theme in a story is associated with an idea that lies behind the story. To identify a story’s theme, it is necessary to look beyond the plot. The plot tells you what hap¬pens in a story, but the theme tells you what the story is about. Think of your favorite song. What idea is communicated? (hint the chorus in a song is a good place to start. In stories, the title is a good place to start). Do not confuse theme with moral. A moral is a lesson to be taught. Literature does not necessarily do this. A theme is the message the writer wants you to understand. It is deeper than a moral. Example: One’s freedom is more important than social expectations because in that one discovers a deeper reason for living.
After reading your choice of short story, make note of how that theme is conveyed throughout the narrative; through both the subject matter and literary technique. Pay particular attention to the literary elements discussed in the course readings on the short story. What you are required to do when identifying theme is to answer the question “How?” You should ask questions such as:
How does the writer use setting to narrow the underlying idea?
How do characters make particular aspects of the underlying idea clear?
How does conflict reveal the strength or worth of the underlying idea?
In Practice
As I have written many of these types of essays in my career, and I have helped high school and college students do this as well, what I think is helpful is to go through the text and identify the elements the writer is using. This is called annotating the text. Label each of the devices/elements that you see the writer using that you think are important: plot, point of view, tone, setting, character, and symbolism. I have taken lately, in my own reading for pleasure, to pay more particular attention to point of view. Who is telling the story? What do they notice? Why are these things important? Plot is only useful in picking out the important plot elements that create character or conflict. Remember, as you write, that I have read the story so you don’t need to tell it to me. You just want to explain how certain parts of the story tell the message. In a theater workshop I took, the artist called them “purple passages,” the royal passages that without, you wouldn’t really understand the story. For tone and setting, make sure you are specific. What kind of tone: sad, elegiac, delighted, perplexed? For setting, what is the specific time, place, or conditions in the novel that affect the characters? Symbols are probably my favorite to find because writers use very few of them in a particular story. What object stands for itself but also stands for a deeper idea. It could be a necklace, a mountain, etc.
…………………….Answer preview…………………
Tim O’brien intricately displays the theme of conflict in the story of the things they carry through the use of imagination and ideas that the main character of the story; Lieutenant Cross in the story of the things they carry. The author slowly brings the reader into a combat zone of an active unit and explains all the flaws that they are facing by use of memory such as when some of the soldiers such as Lavender died in the war. Lt………………
APA
315 words