HOW TO READ A NOVEL

1. Point of View (POV) and Narrative Technique 1.One useful way to approach a novel involves asking yourself (as you read): Who is telling the story? Is it some unidentified person or voice? Is there a specific speaker? Does the speaker change throughout the novel? (why would the author change POV’s)

2. Plot and Narrative structure o Plot is what happens in a story, and structure is the order in which the novel presents the plot. (Is the novel presented using Rhetorical Strategies such as: Flashbacks, Stream of Consciousness, etc.) Plot and structure converge almost completely in novels in order for the theme to come full circle. o Although it might seem easy to merge plot and structure completely, it is virtually impossible to do so. Yes, the plot and structure converge, but they are separate entities.

3. Setting I. Where does the action take place? (Think of place and time) Chronological setting: The effects of the chronological setting of the novel will impact the novel. Does the novel take place over a period of time? A month…year…decade? WHY?

Setting Continued… II. Place: Ask yourself:  How does the physical place affect the characters?  WHY did the author choose this specific place?  Why not somewhere else?  What makes this “place” essential to understanding the novel?

4. Characterization I.Ask yourself:  Who are the main characters?  What are they thinking?  Why do they think this?

o When you think of it, one of the strangest things about fiction is that authors can make us react to a bunch of words as if they were a real person. The author can get us to laugh or cry, get angry or indignant, and even occasionally think of the character’s actions when trying to make a “real-life” decision. o The various techniques that create this powerful illusion of a person make up what we call characterization. Her are some of the more important of these literary devices:  Physical descriptions – telling us what the character looks like.  Dialogue – what the character says.  Physical actions – what the character does (particularly in relation to what he or she says or thinks.  Thoughts, or mental actions – the character’s inner life, what the character thinks.  Judgments by others – what other characters say and think about this fictional person.  The narrator’s judgment – what the narrator tells us about the character  The author’s judgment – what the author thinks of the character (sometimes difficult to determine until late in the narrative)

5. Subject vs. Theme We frequently use the terms theme and subject interchangeably, but they are NOT. Subject: Can be a word or phrase which gives the overall topic of the novel. Theme: Posed in a thesis format, giving the reader something to “think” about when analyzing the novel…Essentially telling the reader what the subject “means.”

Example of Subject: 1.A general subject(s) of a book can be: “the condition of the working classes” or “the relations of manufacturers and mill workers.”

In contrast, the theme is what the novel implies we should think about such subjects; it’s what the book means. Example of Theme North and South shows that factory workers in mid-Victorian England led harsh lives of deprivation and injustice; with that following the assumptions that classical economics led factory owners to mistreat their workers and to consider them almost as a separate, lower species.