Important Elements in Analyzing A Short Story

Important Elements in Analyzing A Short Story

                                     Written by Ari Julianto


When analyzing fiction, you should consider:

1. PLOT
Plot refers to what happens in the story - events and thoughts which make up the story's basic structure. The plot is usually composed of an introduction, rising action, a climax, falling action and an ending that ties the story together. All plots contain a conflict: a struggle between two or more opposing forces. The conflict may be internal (person vs. self) or external (person vs. person, person vs. nature, person vs. society, or person vs. fate).

2. SETTING
Setting refers to the location of a story or novel in terms of place, time, social environment, and physical environment. Place: the geographical location of the story - a country or a city, a large city or a small village, indoors or outdoors, or both. Time: the period in history, the season of the year, the day of the month, and/or the hour of the day in which the events of the story occur. Social environment: the location of characters and events in a particular society and/or a particular social class (lower, middle, or upper class).
Physical environment: the details of the location in which the story takes place. These physical details often indicate the emotional state of the characters or the relationship between characters.

3. CHARACTERS
Characters are the people (or animals!) in a story. The term character refers to people's outward appearance and behaviour and also their inner emotional, intellectual, and moral qualities. Most stories have a main character (the protagonist or hero/heroine), whose personality traits move the plot forward and contribute to conflict. Many stories also have at least one minor character, who is not the focus of the story but who still plays an important role. Sometimes characters provide contrasts with one another.

4. POINT OF VIEW
Point of view is the perspective from which a story is told. The author creates a narrator to tell the story. It is through the narrator's perspective (through the narrator's eyes and mind) that readers learn what is happening in a story. Do not make the mistake of thinking that the narrator of a story is the author. Remember that the point of view and the narrator are tools created and used by the author in order to tell a story in a certain way. The narrator of a story does not necessarily express the author's opinions.

5. IMAGERY
Imagery refers to the collection of images in a work of fiction: the mental pictures created by the author's words. Writers use concrete images to go beyond physical description in order to express feelings and states of mind. Most images are created through words that appeal to the reader's five senses.
For example, a pink flower may appeal to the reader's sense of sight or smell and bring forth pleasant associations with springtime or a holiday memory. The colour green suggests youth and life; white, purity.

6. SYMBOLISM
A symbol is something that represents something else. It is an image of an event or a physical object (a thing, person, or place) that is used to represent something non-physical such as an idea, a value, or an emotion. Authors use symbols to suggest meaning. A heart, for example, symbolises love. One symbol may suggest more than one meaning.

7. TONE
Tone refers to the author's attitude or position toward the action, characters, narrator, subject, and even readers of the story. To determine the tone of a story, the reader must examine the language the author uses and decide what effect the author's choice of words has.

8. IRONY
Irony refers to the unexpected difference or lack of agreement between appearance and truth or between expectation and reality. Irony is apparent when an author uses language to create a deliberate contrast between appearance (what seems to be true) and truth (what is true), or between expectation (what was hoped for) and reality (what actually happens). Often readers know or understand something that a character in a story does not.

9. THEME
A theme is a truth that a story reveals. A theme is rarely directly stated by the author. Instead, the reader must discover the theme by questioning and examining the meaning from details in the story. Usually themes deal with general areas of human experience, for example: the nature of humanity or society, the relationship of human beings to the environment, or the question of moral responsibility.

Mostly taken from The Learning Center