Read the short story "Mother Sauvage" by Guy de Maupassant before answering this three-part request: 1. Identify THREE of these literary elements in the story, and explain how you recognize them: o Pl

To review , here are k ey components of the short story to be familiar with as y ou start to read and write about literature. Review these terms closely and be prepared to apply them to y our writing. See Literary T erms or The Oxford Dictionary of Liter ary Terms . Short Story Plot Character/Char acterization Setting Diction Theme Short Story : A fictional prose tale of no specified length, but too short to be published as a volume on its own, as novellas sometimes and no vels usually are. A short story will normally concentr ate on a single event with only one or two char acters, more economically than a novel’ s sustained explor ation of social background. There are similar fictional forms of greater antiquit y— fables , laisse , folktales , par ables , and the French conte —but the short story as we know it flourished in the magazines of the 19th and early 20th centuries, especially in the US A, which has a particularly strong tradition.

Plot : The pattern of events and situations in a narr ative or dr amatic work, as selected and arr anged both to emphasiz e relationships—usually of cause and effect —between incidents and to elicit a particular kind of interest in the reader or audience, such as surprise or suspense. Although in a loose sense the term commonly refers to that sequence of chief events which can be summariz ed from a story or play, modern criticism often mak es a stricter distinction between the plot of a work and its story : the plot is the selected version of ev ents as presented to the reader or audience in a certain order and duration, whereas the story is the full sequence of ev ents as we imagine them to have tak en place in their ‘natur al’ order and duration. The story, then, is the hypothetical ‘raw material’ of ev ents which we reconstruct from the finished product of the plot. The critical discussion of plots originates in Aristotle’ s Poetics (4th century BCE), in which his term mythos corresponds roughly with our ‘plot’. Aristotle sa w plot as more than just the arrangement of incidents: he assigned to plot the most important function in a dr ama, as a governing principle of dev elopment and coherence to which other elements (including character) must be subordinated. He insisted that a plot should ha ve a beginning, a middle, and an end, and that its ev ents should form a coherent whole. Plots v ary in form from the fully integrated or ‘tightly knit’ to the loosely episodic . In general, though, most plots will tr ace some process of change in which char acters are caught up in a developing conflict that is finally resolved.

Character/Characterization : Characterization is a liter ary device that is used step-b y- step in liter ature to highlight and explain the details about a character in a story . It is in 5/21/2020 Week 1, Section 1. Critical Reading - ENGL 102 6388 Composition and Literature (2205) https://learn.umgc.edu/d2l/le/content/538751/viewContent/18808244/V iew 2/3 the initial stage in which the writer introduces the char acter with noticeable emergence.

After introducing the character, the writer often talks about his beha vior; then, as the story progresses, the thought-processes of the character. The next stage in volv es the char acter expressing his opinions and ideas, and getting into con versations with the rest of the char acters. The final part shows how others in the story respond to the char acter’s personalit y.

Setting : An en vironment or surrounding in which an ev ent or story takes place. It may provide particular information about placement and timing, such as New Y ork, America, in the year 1820. Setting could be simply descriptiv e, like a lonely cottage on a mountain. Social conditions, historical time, geogr aphical locations, weather, immediate surroundings, and timing are all different aspects of setting. There are three major components to setting: social en vironment, place, and time. Moreo ver , setting could be an actual region, or a cit y made larger than life, as James Jo yce char acterizes Dublin in Ulysses . Or, it could be a work of the author ’s imagination, such as Vladimir Nabok ov’ s imaginativ e place, space-time continuum in Ada . The two main t ypes of setting are (1) Backdrop Setting, which emerges when it is not important for a story , and it could happen in any setting. For instance, A. A. Milne’ s story Winnie-the-Pooh could take place in any type of setting, and (2) Integr al Setting , in which the place and time influence the theme , character , and action of a story . This type of setting controls the characters. By confining a certain char acter to a particular setting, the writer defines the character . Beatrix P otter’s short story "The T ail of Peter Rabbit" is an example of integr al setting: the behavior of Peter becomes an integr al part of the setting. Another good example of this type of setting can be seen in E. B . White's novel Charlotte’s Web. Note: this information is borrowed from Liter ary Devices Diction - word choice that both con veys and emphasiz es the meaning or theme of a story, poem, or pla y through distinctions in sound, look, rh ythm, syllable, letters, and definition. How do the words influence the reader/listener/viewer to think and/or feel certain ways about the material and its significance? Should some texts be banned because they feature words that some readers/listeners/viewers ma y be offended by? Theme : A salient abstr act idea that emerges from a liter ary work’s treatment of its subject matter; or a topic recurring in a number of liter ary works. While the subject of a work is described concretely in terms of its action (e.g. ‘the adv entures of a newcomer in the big city’), its theme or themes will be described in more abstr act terms (e.g. love, w ar , rev enge, betr ayal, fate, etc.). The theme of a work ma y be announced explicitly, but more often it emerges indirectly through the recurrence of motifs.

Recognition of liter ary elements is important, for it accomplishes at least two vital strategies: enables a reader to design a solid thesis facilitates comprehension of the complex processes of the short story From theme, for example, we can identif y and analyze other elements such as structure, characterization, and language.

Now that y ou are familiar with terms required to analyz e literature, please read closely the short story " Mother Sauv age " by Guy de Maupassant, in order to identif y elements 5/21/2020 Week 1, Section 1. Critical Reading - ENGL 102 6388 Composition and Literature (2205) https://learn.umgc.edu/d2l/le/content/538751/viewContent/18808244/V iew 3/3 related to the terms: plot, setting, char acter, narr ator, point of view , and theme. Y ou will be asked to comment in W eek 1, Discussion 1 upon the story and some of its elements.