Vocabulary and phrases for text interpretation

No.1 : (Fiction) The short story

1. Structure:

The short story consists of three parts:

a) the exposition

b) the main part

c) the denouement

The exposition is the first part of a short story. The function of the exposition is to introduce the main characters (or: protagonists), to give the reader an idea of the atmosphere in the story, to introduce the theme (or: topic) of the story and to show its setting.

For example, in Isaac Asimov´s "The Fun They Had", the exposition lets us know that the main characters are Margie and Tommy, that the atmosphere is not unusual (this is not a thriller or a horror story, where we could expect a different atmosphere), that the theme of the story has something to do with school and that the story is set in the future.

In the main part of every short story, the plot (or: action) develops from the rising action to the climax and then to the falling action. Usually, the story gets more interesting and the atmosphere gets more exciting from the rising action to the climax and then, with the falling action, the plot and the atmosphere become a little less exciting.

For example, in Isaac Asimov´s "The Fun They Had", the action rises up to the point where Margie finds out about the "old" school and gets interested in the book (which she found boring at first). So the climax is somewhere between lines 43 and 62. After that, with Margie´s mother calling her to school and Margie doing her maths, we have the falling action.

The denouement is often the shortest of the three parts. It is the end of the short story and solves the problem or question that the short story is about. In many short stories, the denouement is surprising, exciting or even shocking.

2. Characters and characterization

Short stories, novels and other fictional texts do not deal with real people - they deal with characters. The most important character is called the protagonist (or: main character; hero) of the story. When we read works of fiction, we often look closely at characterization - that is, we try to find out by which means an author characterizes the various characters in the story and whether they are characterized as, for example, good or bad "people", as unscrupulous, helpful, friendly, etc. [In "Locker 160", Karen is clearly characterized as an unscrupulous protagonist.]

The author can use different means of characterization. Most importantly, he may use direct characterization or indirect characterization. In direct characterization, the author tells us quite clearly what kind of character we are reading about. [He can say, for example: "Karen was a cruel girl who liked to play nasty tricks on her class mates."] When the author uses indirect characterization, he shows us what sort of character we are looking at by his choice of words in describing the character´s actions, in what the character himself says or in what other characters say about him. So a protagonist may be characterized by his actions or his own words.

Vocabulary and phrases for text interpretation;  No.1 : (Fiction) The short story  - page 2 -

3. The narrator and the point of view

Every short story or novel has a narrator who lets the reader see the action in the story through his eyes, from his point of view. The narrator is, of course, not the same as the author. The author uses the narrator to tell us his story and to tell it from a certain point of view. [In "The Fun They Had", Isaac Asimov is not actually there, watching Margie and Tommy. Nor, in "Locker 160", is Lee Busselmann the same person as Karen: Lee Busselmann is the author; Karen is the protagonist - and, at the same time, the narrator.]

There are three basic types of narrators:

a) The omniscient narrator - he sees not only what the characters do, he can see into their heads and knows what they think and how they feel. He knows everything in the story.

(Sometimes he tells us only what one character feels and thinks - in this case, we talk about "selective omniscience". [That is what we have in "The Fun They Had"])

b) The I-narrator (or: first person narrator) tells us the story from the point of view of one of the characters in the story, usually from the protagonist´s point of view. In this case, the pronouns "I" and "we" are used to let us feel "inside" the character/narrator. [That is what we can find in "Locker 160"]