1. TEXT INTERPRETATION Theoretical preliminaries преп. Северинец О.В.

2. Title The title is the first element to catch our eye.

3. The title may have the following functions: It may serve as a means of conveying the author’s message (Say no to Death); It may serve as a means of cohesion. It may unite the components of a story to form a whole; It may serve as a means of focusing the reader’s attention on the most relevant characters or details; The title may characterize the protagonist (The Man of Property); Any title orients the reader towards the story. It may then serve as a means of foreshadowing. It may also disorientate the reader.

4. Plot The plot is a series of interlinked events in which the characters of the story participate.

5. Plot development Exposition is an outline of characters and setting, preparing you for the conflict; Complications involve actions, though they might involve thoughts and feelings as well; Climax is the highest point of tension, the event(s) where the fate of the characters and the outcome of the story are decided Denouement is the resolution, the playing-out of the action, finishing the story off by showing the consequences of the climax for the main characters.

7. Setting The setting of a narrative or a dramatic work is the general locale and the historical time, the place and time, in which it occurs. In short: Where and When the story takes place.

8. The setting may have the following functions: The setting, especially description of nature, helps to evoke the necessary atmosphere (or mood); The setting may reinforce the characterization by either paralleling or contrasting the actions; The setting may place the character in a recognizable realistic environment. It includes geographical names and allusions to historical events; The setting, especially domestic interiors, may serve to reveal certain features of the character; When the theme and the main problem involves the conflict between man and nature, the setting becomes the chief antagonist whom the hero must overcome.

9. Theme The theme is the core of meaning in the story.

10. Message The message is a “deeper” meaning indicating something “beyond”. It’s the author’s real intention with the text.

11. Conflict The conflict is the opposition between forces or characters. Conflicts are classified into: external, internal.

12. External conflicts Man against man, when the plot is based on the opposition between two or more people; Man against nature; Man against society or man against the established order in the society; The conflict between one set of value and another set of values.

13. Internal conflict Man against himself.

14. Plot structure techniques Straight line narrative presentation, when the events are arranged as they occur; A complex narrative structure. The events are not arranged in chronological order – there are flashbacks to past events; A circular pattern, when the closing event in the story returns the reader to the introductory part; A frame structure, when there is a story within a story. The two stories contrast or parallel.

15. THANK YOU FOR YOUR ATTENTION