PART 2

教师进入正文讲解：

Q1: What is the relationship between novel and story?

A1: If the purpose of the novel is only to tell stories, it could as well remain unborn, for newspapers and history books are sufficient to satisfy people's desire for stories about both present and past, and even about future. In fact, many newspapermen have been dissatisfied with their job of reporting and come into the field of novel writing. As indicated in the definition of the novel. What makes a novel a novel is the novelist's style personalized presentation of the story) and interpretation of the story. Apart from the story, the reader should read more for the style.

教师进入Character 讲解:

Q2: How do you think of the “fellow-beings”?

A2: The “fellow beings” in the novel is termed characters. By “fellow beings” is meant not only “human beings” but also “other beings,” such as animals. George Orwell uses animals to represent human beings in his novel Animal Farm. Lewis Carroll creates many lovely animals in his Alice's Adventures in Wonderland that appeal to both children and adults.

Q3: Are the characters in novels real persons or just inventions?

A3: It is not difficult to see that characters in novels resemble people in real life in many ways. They have names used in the same way ours are used they have hatred and love, and they have desires and fears. Above all, they act the way we act or the way we can understand (like or dislike).

But we must bear in mind that the characters are not real persons, but merely inventions, however ingenious. Compare the physical life and spiritual life of the characters and ours. We have to answer the nature's call several times a day, but characters seldom do this, even in the most realistic or naturalistic novels. We have to live our life hour by hour and day by day, but characters never do this.

Characters do not live, but act. When we watch actors speak aloud to themselves on the stage as if they were alone, we know they are acting and they are different from what they represent in real life. The characters in novels exist in a similar manner.

Q4: How many groups are the characters divided into?

Usually, a novel has more than one character. They interact with each other and make up the story. But they are not equally important or have the same function to the novelist. By their roles in the novel, the characters can be grouped as

Heroes,

Main characters and minor characters,

And foils.

Q5: What is the difference between the hero or heroine and the main or major character?

A:The main or major characters are those in close and dynamic relation with the hero or heroine. Close relation does not mean good relation. Pablo in For Whom the Bell Tolls is constantly finding trouble with the hero Jordan, yet he is a main character as his wife Pilar is. Minor characters are those in remote and static relation with the hero. It is wrong to think that minor characters are all unimportant. In some novels, one or some of the minor characters may serve a critical role, structural or interpretational.

Q6: What is the feature of foil character?

A: Foil characters are ones that help enhance the intensity of the hero or heroine by strengthening or contrasting.

Wilson in The Great Gatsby works by strengthening. Gatsby lost his lover to Tom and Wilson lost his wife to Tom. By presenting Wilson's case the novelist intends to point out the profound cause of Gatsby's tragedy. Dr. Watson in the stories of Sherlock Holmes serves as a foil to the hero, rendering the detective smarter than he would otherwise appear to the reader.

Q7: By E.M. Forster, the characters can be grouped as two parts, what are they？

A: By the degrees of their development, characters can be grouped as round characters and flat characters. Round characters are fully developed while flat characters are not. Or we can say that round characters grow while flat characters do not.

Q8: What is flat character? Can you give some examples?

A: The flat character is a "closed" character to whose inner thoughts the reader is denied access. Usually one side of the flat character is shown in the novel. Most heroes are round characters who grow emotionally or spiritually.

Emma grows from innocence to self-knowledge( Emma.), Pip comes to realize that wealth can not make a gentleman( Great Expectations ) Stephen Dedalus grows up to question Ireland's cultural and religious traditions( A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man), Henry becomes disappointed with those sacred words about war and the war itself ( A Farewell to Arms).

Q9: What is stock character?

A: Some characters are typical in literature and are thus termed as stock characters, for they are stereotypes. Stock characters do not demand description and exposition to be believable and understood to the reader, because the reader has already had a stock of knowledge about such characters. We often meet stock characters in novels, for example, the stern silent sheriff, the mad scientist, the innocent and good-natured rustic, and the cruel stepmother.

教师进入Plot讲解:

Q10: How can we distinguish plot from story?

A: the story and the character alone can not make a novel yet. To make a novel, a plot is prerequisite. A look at the example suggested by E.M. Forster will help to distinguish between the story and the plot."The king died and then the queen died is not a plot, but a story. If we make it “The king died and then the queen died of grief,” we have a plot. This causal phrase “of grief” indicates our interpretation and thus arrangement of the happenings.

Q11: How many phrases are there in a complete plot?

A: A complete or traditional plot comprises phases like exposition, conflict, climax, denouement.

Q12: What is exposition and how to make it?

A: Exposition is the part of a plot that provides the essential background information so that the events in the plot have a sound basis to begin and so that the reader is able to understand the characters and the action. When the exposition consists of an action, it is called the initiating action.

(1) By relating an unusual or dramatic event. For example, the dramatic event of Henchard selling his wife in The Mayor of Casterbridge not only starts the plot effectively but also shapes it largely. Firstly, the event immediately gets the reader's attention. Secondly, the event provides a sort of center for the novel. The separation is to affect the character sand the plot.

(2) By describing a meaningful scene. For example, in the first paragraph of The Power and the Glory, the sinister, death-laden atmosphere foreshadows what is going to happen.

(3) By setting up a contrast. By contrast, tension is built. Since the point of a plot is the graduation toward the highest conflict, it is natural and good to begin a plot with a conflict or contrast of minor import that will lead to the climax. The contrast can be between scenes, between characters, or between a scene and a character. The opening sentence of Pride and Prejudice ("It is a truth universally acknowledged that a single man in possession of a good fortune must be in want of a wife.") sets two types of people in contrast. The beginning of The Scarlet Letter contrasts the black prison door with the rose bush beside it summarizing symbolically the conflict between a severe society and natural human desire.

Q13: What is the function of the conflict?

Conflict is the confrontation of actions, ideas, desires, or wills. In the plot of a novel, there are usually more conflicts than one. The conflicts eventually lead to the climax. Although conflicts are to create tensions, not all conflicts are capable of effect. For example, in a football game, when the losing team is fighting back, there is a conflict, a clash of action. But if the score is 10-0 and there is only five seconds left, there is little tension, for the result is almost certain. Therefore, a conflict should be as intense as to arouse the reader’s interest and give him anxiety.

Q14: Explain the role of climax and denouement.

A: Climax is the most important and intensest one of the conflicts in the plot upon which the whole novel pivots and whose resolution virtually ends the novel. In terms of significance and emotional intensity, the conflicts preceding the climax constitute the rising action and those succeeding the climax the falling action.

Denouement is a word borrowed from Latin, meaning “unknotting” It is equivalent to the falling action.

Q15: How to prepare before making a plot?

A: All things exist in the three-dimensional system of time, space and value. So in an analysis of an event, there are four factors to consider: they are the doer and the doing (they are inseparable, so considered as one factor), the time, the space, and the value.

Q16：How to manipulate time in novel writing?

A: (1) To decide a time span. The historian attempts to record humanity from time immemorial to the infinite future, but the novelist is contented to write about part of this time span.

(2) To omit some time units from the time span already decided upon. Imagine that someone has chosen to make a true-to-life record of every minute (not to mention the seconds) of three years of a person's life on video tapes. It is impossible, even in words. Even if he succeeded few people would take interest in viewing it, because it must have been without a focus of attention. Therefore, out of necessity and desire to create a focus, the novelist has to omit some days, months or years from the time span he has chosen to write about.

(3) To disorganize/ reorganize time. Of course, the novelist can narrate events in the order of natural time. But for various reasons, the novelist sometimes has to take some event out of the time sequence and tell about the result first and then trace back to the causes. This technique is called "flashback."