Elements of the Novel

Like any other works of art, a novel is an organic whole. Its various elements are created simultaneously by the novelist and cannot be separated without losing their perspectives. However, for the sake of focused analysis we can provisionally isolate some of its elements and give them due consideration. The following discussion is on the major elements of the novel and is by no means complete or absolute. The truism that the whole is larger than all its parts put together is always valid in literature.

1.1 Story

1. 1.1 What Is Story?

“Yes - oh, dear, yes- the novel tells a story.” Forster's remark is worth special attention, for he is someone in the trade and with rich experience. In his Aspects of the Novel he lists "story” as the first aspect.” People reading novels for stories usually ask questions like "What happened next? and "What would he do next?” These questions attest to the two basic elements of a story. The one is the event and the other the time. A story is a series of happenings arranged in the natural temporal order as they occur. Story is the basis of the novel, and indeed the basis of narrative works of all kinds.

1.1.2 The Story and the Nove

To read novels for story is nothing wrong, but nothing professional either. “One mark of a second-rate mind is to be always telling stories.” The mark by the French writer Jean de La Bruyere (1645-1696)is also true of the reader. 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. Defoe, Dickens, Joyce Hemingway and Camus were among the most famous and the most successful converts. Even historians may feel obliged to do more than mere stories or facts. Edward Gibbon's Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire is praised not only for its multitudinous facts and rationalistic analysis. but more for its beauty of narrative style. In telling stories, the novelist aims at something higher or he intends to add something to the mere "facts." 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.

1.2 Character

1. 2. 1 What Is Character?

Closely related with the story is the character. Henry James said, "What is character but the determination of incident? What is incident but the illustration of character?” ("The Art of Fiction") When we read a novel we read about our fellow beings, and that is one of the motives in reading at all. 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.

Orwell does not intend to convince the reader that animals can speak human language or that he is a translator between animals and humans. Nosensible reader, after reading Orwell's Animal Farm, would go to the pigsty to look for a talking boar. This proves the agreed-on fictionality of characters in novels. So broadly, a character is an invented personality to resemble but never to equal a real person in life.

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. They choose to live some time more fully than others, and are able to skip over periods of ten months or twenty years without seeming weird, a feat which we can never attempt. In our life, our minds are a gray matter even to scientists. We can not know what is going on in others' minds. But in novels, the minds of the characters are open or can be made open to the reader if the novelist chooses so. The reader not only sees their clothes, but also sees their minds. One character may be an enemy to other characters, but he is a friend to the reader, before whom he can think aloud, to borrow Emerson’s words. 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.

1.2.2 Kinds of Characters

Usually, a novel has more than one character. They interact with each other and make up the story. But they are not equal 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.

The character on whom a novel centers is called the hero or heroine when it is a female character. The word "hero" originally refers to a man. In mythology and legend, often of divine ancestry, who is endowed with great courage and strength, celebrated for his bold exploits, and favored by the gods. In the novel, the word "hero is freed of such noble requirements and any central characters can be labeled as heroes. Jonathan Wild is the hero in the novel of the same name by Henry Fielding, though he is a notorious highwayman. Some critics, annoyed by the connotation of “hero,” prefer the word “protagonist,” which sounds neutral. The enemy or rival of the protagonist is called “antagonist.”

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.

Foil characters are ones that help enhance the intensity of the hero or heroine by strengthening or contrasting. They may be main characters or minor characters. In a word, they serve as foils to the hero or heroine. Cohn in The Sun Also Rises is a good example. He is one of the main characters. Like Jake, he is also “lost” trying vainly to escape the past by courting women and drinking. But during their stay in Spain, Cohn display qualities in contrast to those cherished by Jake, which makes Jake realize own problems and finally find a solution, though temporarily. Cohn works mainly by contrast. 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.

By the degrees of their development, characters can be grouped as round characters and flat characters. This division is proposed by E.M. Forster. Round characters are fully developed while flat characters are not. Or we can say that round characters grow while flat characters do not. Usually the reader is allowed access to the inner life of the round character and permitted to learn about many sides of the round character. 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. Just take the familiar heroes or heroines for example. 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). Some main characters and many minor characters are flat characters. Cohn fails to grow out of his college days and see his problems clearly (The Sun Also Rises), Catherine is always in fear of rain and loves Henry immensely (A Farewell to Arms ), and Roger Chilingworth is obsessed all the time with revenge (The Scarlet Letter)

Flat characters, though incapable of development, are somewhat particular to particular novels. When we meet a doctor in another novel, we would not expect him to be someone who is innocent and interested in detective work, like Dr. Watson in the Sherlock Holmes series. Dr. Watson, as a character, is not typical but particular. 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.

Precaution should be taken that the characters in a novel can not be so neatly divided into round ones and flat ones. Usually there is a scale running from the deep and rich to the very shallow and simple.

1.3 Plot

1. 3. 1 What Is Plot?

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.

In the world of reality events take place one after another in the natural temporal order, but in the world of fiction it is the novelist's design that one particular event occur after another particular event. The very word “plot” implies the novelist's rebellion against the natural law and his endeavor to make meanings out of the happenings that may otherwise be meaningless. “The happenings” may or may not be real happenings. A plot is a particular arrangement of happenings in a novel that is aimed at revealing their causal relationships or at conveying the novelist's ideas. A plot is sometimes called a story line. The most important of the traditional plot is that it should be a complete or unified action, that is, something with a beginning, a middle, and an end.

1.3.2 Phases of a Plot

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

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.

Of the many ways to make expositions three are included here。

(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.

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.

A conflict may be between the characters, between the character and society, between the character and his fate or environment, or between the character and himself. In a word, a conflict is centered on the character.

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.

In discussing conflicts and plots, two other terms are frequently used. Crisis refers to the part in which the tension is maximum and a resolution is imminent. The moment when a resolution is being reached or the event that brings about a resolution is called a turning point.

Every conflict contains a crisis and a turning point. Climax is the most important and intense 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.

1. 3. 3 How Is a Plot Made?

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. For example, in the sentence “There was a good rain yesterday in the mountain areas,” “yesterday” is the temporal factor, "mountain areas" the spatial factor, "good" the value judgment, and "rain" the doer, the thing itself. In making a plot, the novelist manipulates the four factors of every one of the events in his novel. The word "manipulate" implies thinking in the manner of realism. Though realism may not boast to be the mainstay of literature now, its approach to literature and life is easier for beginners to understand and provides a springboard onto modernism. Realism holds that literature is a reflection of real life and writers should and indeed do construct their works out of reality. The novelist's fiction is based upon reality. It seems that there is an event in real life first and then the novelist makes some changes to the event to suit his purpose.

Nobody can escape time and nobody experiences every minute of his life with equal intensity. This natural law also governs the novelist's plot-making, his manipulation of the fictional events. There are several ways to manipulate time in novel writing.

(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. At most, he may attempt to write about a few generations of a family, as Gabriel Garcia Marquez does in his One Hundred Years of Solitude. He may want to write about the whole life of a person and finishes with a biography or autobiography. In most cases, the novelist chooses to write about a particular period of a particular person’s life. For example. a Farewell to Arms covers Henry's experience in the First World War, but does not mention his high school days. It does not mean that Henry was born an adult, but that Hemingway thinks that it is more worthwhile to write about his war experience than to elaborate on his teenage. This is Hemingway's manipulation of Frederic Henry's life. He just picks out this particular section of Henry's life span and concentrates on it.

(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. For example, in The Great Gatsby, Mr. Gatsby is still engaged in bootlegging when he is courting Daisy. But Fitzgerald has to omit the detailed account of his business to throw his love for Daisy in relief. To omit or compress some time units means, dialectically, to expand other time units. So, in a novel, a year may be dismissed with "a year later " or "One year had passed" while a day is given several pages for full development.

(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 "In The Great Gatsby, it is only near the end of the novel that Fitzgerald tells the reader how Gatsby carries out a self-training plan and becomes what he is. There are many ways to disorganize time, but flashback is the most conventional and will serve our purpose in this part.

An event has to occur in a particular place, and this gives the novelist another opportunity to manipulate. To manipulate about place is quite easy for there is no natural standard by which the reader can judge. To write about the corrupting forces of big cities, any big city will do, be it New York or San Francisco or Los Angeles. Sister Carrie would still be an innocent and vain girl even if she came from another small town instead of Colombia. The only thing to watch out for is the stock type. Of course once the novelist has decided on one place, he will have to create details particular to that place. But the choice is rather free.

The novelist can manipulate the doer and the doing, too. To invent a violent death, the novelist can make a car kill an old man, or a bridge fall on governor, provided it suits his purpose.

To make value judgments is a bit more complicated. Of course, the novelist can be straightforward and address the reader directly, saying something like "Look at the heroine, see how chaste she is,” as some classic writers often feel obliged to. But that is comment, not plot. To make value judgments through plots, the novelist has to rely on the concept of time. Such is the human psychology that we allocate more time to the things we are interested in and give only passing attention to uninteresting things. Therefore, when the novelist provides many details of a particular object or event, he is showing that that particular object or event occupies an important position in his mind and also in the plot of the novel. This is similar to and related to the omitting, compressing or expanding of time.

The novelist must not only select, he must arrange. But the novelist must make his arrangement wisely so as to conceal the fact that all is made up by him. A good plot arrangement makes the reader feel that the plot has a quality of inevitability given a set of characters and an initial situation. “Things ought to happen like that,” the reader would express his approval. When the novelist makes things happen unnaturally and unreasonably, he commits the mistake of over-manipulation, i.e., he violates the logic of life. In some novels, most romances, and almost all pulp literature, the novelist commits such mistakes. He puts the hero in a difficult situation and then realizes that the hero is unable to solve the problem with his intelligence. At this moment, the novelist feels obliged to help the hero out by providing an improbable chance or opportunity. So when a heroine is just about to be murdered, she will probably have to be saved by a knight who happens to pass by the wood, or by a grizzly bear which scares the murderer away, but later is scared away by the heroine's screaming. If the novelist is determined to save the heroine, his resources will be endless. But none of these is believable, because the novelist relies completely on chance or coincidence. By doing so, the novelist is working wonders as if he were God. The technique he uses or the solution he provides is called "deus ex machine,” a term from ancient Greek and Roman theater, meaning “god from the machine”.

Since the purpose of the novel is not only to entertain, but also to instruct, chances and coincidences are less valued in a novel as resolutions to conflicts and dilemmas. The resolutions should be logical and inevitable. However, chances and coincidences should not be completely denounced. They are good to initiate a story. Nobody goes into trouble on purpose or by design and nobody is willing to rely on chances for delivery. A good novel begins with accident but ends with reason. A person who has his leg broken by accident will not wait for the bone to heal by itself, though bones do have the self-healing ability. He will go to the doctor for something sure. It is often said that fact is stranger than fiction. All is possible in actual life and all has to be accepted. But in literary fiction, almost all solutions have to be based on logic or reason in order to be accepted by the reader. This is a major difference between life and literature.