Plot What is the story s central conflict? Who is the protagonist? What does he or she want? What is at stake for the protagonist in the conflict? At the end, are the characters successful or unsuccessful, happy or unhappy, satisfied or dissatisfied, changed or unchanged, enlightened or ignorant? How has the resolution of the major conflict produced these results? Point of View What stands in the way of the protagonist s easily achieving his or her goal? How is the story narrated? Is it told in the first or the third person? What is the effect? What is the impact of success, failure, or a surprising outcome on the protagonist? Who are the major and minor characters, and how do their characteristics put them in conflict? How can you describe the conflict or conflicts? How does the story s action grow out of the major conflict? If the conflict stems from contrasting ideas or values, what are these and how are they brought out? What problems do the major characters face? How do the characters deal with these problems? If the story is told in the third person, is the point of view omniscient, or third-person limited? What is the effect? If the story is told by a first-person narrator, what is the speaker s main reason for telling the story? Does the narrator have something at stake in presenting the events? What does the narrator have to gain by making us believe his or her account? If the story is told in the first person, is there anything peculiar about the narrator? Does this peculiarity create any suspicions about the narrator s accuracy or reliability? How do the major characters achieve (or not achieve) their major goal(s)? What obstacles do they overcome? What obstacles overcome them or alter them? How is the narration made to seem real or probable? Are the actions and speeches reported authentically, as they might be seen and reported in life?
Is the narrator/speaker identifiable? What are the narrator s qualifications as an observer? How much of the story seems to result from the imaginative or creative powers of the narrator? How does the narrator/speaker perceive the time of the actions? If the predominant tense is the past, what relationship if any, does the narrator establish between the past and the present (e.g., providing explanations, making conclusions)? If the tense is present, what effect does this tense have on your understanding of the story? To what extent does the point of view make the work interesting and effective? First Person Point of View To what degree is the narrator involved in the action (i.e., as a major participant or major mover, minor participant, or nonparticipating observer)? Does he make himself the center of humor or admiration? How? Does he seem aware of changes he undergoes? Does the speaker criticize other characters? Why? Does she seem to report fairly and accurately what others have told her? Third Person Point of View From what apparent vantage point does the speaker report action and speeches? Does this vantage point make the characters seem distant or close? How much sympathy does the speaker express for the characters? To what degree is your interest centered on a particular character? Does the speaker give you thoughts and responses of this character (limited third person)? If the work is third-person omniscient, how extensive is the omniscience (e.g., all the characters or just a few)? Generally, what limitations or freedoms can be attributed to this point of view? What special kinds of knowledge does the narrator assume that the listeners or readers possess (e.g., familiarity with art, religion, politics, history, navigation, music, current or past social conditions, mythology)? How much dialogue is used in the story? Is the dialogue presented directly, as dramatic speech or indirectly, as past-tense reports of speeches? What is your perception of the story s events as a result of the use of dialogue? Character Who is the main character or protagonist of the story?
Make a quick list of the character s physical, mental, moral, or behavioral traits. Which of these characteristics seem especially significant to the action of the story? Describe and explain the traits, both major and minor, of the character you plan to discuss. To what extent do the traits permit you to judge the character? What is your judgment? What is the character s primary motivation? Does this motivation seem as reasonable to you as it does to the protagonist? If not, what is suggested by this unreasonableness? In what ways is the protagonist changed or tested by the events of the story? Who is the major character? What do you learn about this character from his or her actions and speeches? From the speeches and actions of other characters? How else do you learn about the character? How important is the character to the work s principal action? Which characters oppose the major character? How do the major character and the opposing character(s) interact? What effects do these interactions create? What actions bring out important traits of the main character? To what degree is the character creating events, or just responding to them? What descriptions (if any) of how the character looks do you discover in the story? What does this appearance demonstrate about him or her? In what ways is the character s major trait a strength or a weakness? As the story progresses, to what degree does the trait become more (of less) prominent? Is the character round and dynamic? How does the character recognize, change with, or adjust to circumstances? If the character you are analyzing is flat or static, what function does he or she perform in the story (for example, by doing a task or by bringing out qualities of the major character)? If the character is a stereotype, to what type does he or she belong? To what degree does the character stay in the stereotypical role or rise above it? How? Describe the main character s actions: Are they good or bad, intelligent or stupid, deliberate or spontaneous? How do they help you understand her or him? What do they show about the character as a person?
Setting What do any of the other characters do, say, or think to give you understanding of the character you are analyzing? What does the character say or think about himself or herself? What does the storyteller or narrator say? How valid are these comments and insights? How helpful are they in providing insights into the character? Is the character lifelike or unreal? Consistent or inconsistent? Believable or not believable? Where does the story take place? Does a change in setting during the story suggest some internal change in the protagonist? How extensive are the visual descriptions? Does the author provide such vivid and carefully arranged detail about surroundings that you could draw a map or plan? Or is the scenery vague and difficult for you to reconstruct imaginatively? What connections, if any, are apparent between locations and characters? Do the locations bring characters together, separate them, facilitate their privacy, make intimacy and conversation difficult? What does the setting suggest about the characters lives? Are there significant differences in the settings for different characters? What does this suggest about each person? When does the story take place? Is the time of year or time of day significant? Does the weather play a meaningful role in the story s actin? What is the protagonist s relationship to the setting? Does it create a strongly positive or negative reaction? How fully are objects described? How vital are they to the action? How important are they in the development of the plot or idea? How are they connected to the mental states of the characters? How important to plot and character are shapes, colors, times of day, clouds, storms, light and sun, seasons of the year, and conditions of vegetation? Are the characters poor, moderately well off, or rich? How does their economic condition affect what happens to them, and how does it affect their actions and attitudes? Does the setting of the story in some way compel the protagonist into action?
What cultural, religious, and political conditions are brought out in the story? How do the characters accept and adjust to these conditions? How do the conditions affect the characters judgments and actions? What variations in chronological order, if any, appear in the story (for example, gaps in the time sequence; flashbacks or selective recollection)? What effects are achieved by these variations? Structure What is the state of houses, furniture, and objects (e.g., new and polished, old and worn, ragged and torn)? What connections can you find between these conditions and the outlook and behavior of the characters? How important are sounds or silences? To what degree is music or other sound important in the development of character and action? Do characters respect or mistreat the environment? If there is an environmental connection, how central is it to the story? What conclusions do you think the author expects you to draw as a result of the neighborhood, culture, and larger world of the story? Does the story delay any crucial details of exposition? Why? What effect is achieved by the delay? Where does an important action or a major section (such as the climax) begin? End? How is it related to the other formal structural elements, such as the crisis? Is the climax an action, a realization, or a decision? To what degree does it relieve the work s tension? What is the effect of the climax on your understanding of the characters involved in it? How is this effect related to the arrangement of the climax? Tone and Style How strongly do you respond to the story? What words bring out your interest, concern, indignation, fearfulness, anguish, amusement, or sense of affirmation? If the story departs in major ways from the formal structure of exposition, complication, crisis, climax, and resolution, what purpose do these departures serve? Does the diction seem unusual or noteworthy, such as words in dialect, polysyllabic words, or foreign words or phrases that the author assumes you know? Are they any especially connotative or emotive words? What do these words suggest concerning the authors apparent assumptions about the readers?
Can you easily visualize and imagine the situations described by the words? If you find it easy, or hard, to what degree does your success or difficulty stem from the level of diction? What verbal irony do you find in the story? How is the irony connected to philosophies of marriage, family, society, politics, religion, or morality? How do you think you are expected to respond to the irony? For passages describing action, how vivid are the words? How do they help you picture the action? How do they hold your attention? For passages describing exterior or interior scenes, how specific are the words? How much detail doe the writer provide? Should there be more or fewer words? How vivid are the descriptions? How successfully does the author locate scenes spatially? How many words are devoted to colors, shapes, sizes, and son on? What is the effect of such passages? For passages of dialogue, what does the level of speech indicate about the characters? How do a person s speeches help to establish her or his character? For what purposes does the author use formal or informal diction? How much slang (low or informal language) do you find? Why is it there? How does dialogue shape your responses to the characters and to the actions? What role does the narrator/speaker play in your attitudes toward the story material? Does the speaker seem intelligent/stupid, friendly/unfriendly, sane/insane, or idealistic/pragmatic? Symbolism Did anything in the story make you laugh? What placement of words brought out the humor? Explain how the word arrangement caused your laughter. What objects, actions, or places seem unusually significant? List the specific objects, people, and ideas with which a particular symbol is associated. Locate the exact place in the story where the symbol links itself to the other thing. What cultural or universal symbols can you discover in names, objects, places, situation, or actions in a work. What contextual symbolism can be found in a work? What make you think it is symbolic? What is being symbolized? How definite or direct is the symbolism? How systematically is it used? How necessary to the work is it? To what degree does it strengthen the work? How strongly does the work stand on its own without the reading for symbolism?
Theme or Idea List as many possible themes as you can. Relate particular details of the story to the theme you have spelled out. Consider plot details, dialogue, setting, point of view, title any elements that seem especially pertinent. If characters state ideas directly, how persuasive is their expression, how intelligent and well considered? How germane are the ideas to the work? How germane to more general conditions? What ideas do you discover in the work? How do you discover them (through action, character description, scenes, figurative language)? To what do the ideas pertain? To individuals themselves? To individuals and society? To religion? To social, political, or economic circumstances? To fairness? To equality? To justice? How balanced are the ideas? If a particular idea is strongly presented, what conditions and qualifications are also presented (if any)? What contradictory ideas are presented? Are the ideas limited to members of any groups represented by the characters (age, race, nationality, personal status)? Or are the ideas applicable to general conditions of life? (Explain). Which characters in their own right represent or embody ideas? How do their actions and speeches bring out these ideas?