How to Analyze Fiction

I. A. Schirova HOW TO ANALYZE FICTION St. Petersburg 2006 1 2 РОССИЙСКИЙ ГОСУДАРСТВЕННЫЙ ПЕДАГОГИЧЕСКИЙ ББК 81.2 Англ Печатается по решению кафедры английской Щ87 филологии РГПУ им. А. И. Герцена УНИВЕРСИТЕТ ИМ. А.И. ГЕРЦЕНА Рецензенты: доктор филологических наук, профессор Т. А. Казакова (СПбГУ), доктор филологических наук, профессор О. Е. Филимонова (РГПУ) доктор филологических наук, профессор В. И. Шаховский (ВГПУ) Щирова И. А. Щ87 How to Analyze Fiction. Учебное пособие. – СПб.: Борей Арт, 2006. – I. A. Schirova 190 с. ISBN 5-7187-0742-1 Учебное пособие состоит из двух частей: теоретической и практической. Теоретическая часть пособия (I) освещает общие проблемы организации и интерпретации художественного текста (Раздел 1), в том HOW TO ANALYZE числе, распространённых в ХХ веке текстов психологической литературы, FICTION (Раздел 2), а также содержит краткие рекомендации по написанию эссе о литературном произведении (Раздел 3). Практическая часть пособия (II) включает тексты восьми произведений англоязычной психологической прозы указанного исторического периода и упражнения, направленные на Учебное пособие их понимание, анализ и интерпретацию. Произведения предваряются краткими справками, в которых приводятся биографические и библио- графические сведения об авторах. Целью пособия является изучение сущностных и функциональных Допущено Учебно-методическим объединением характеристик языковых фактов, несущих дополнительную эстетическую информацию, овладение понятийно-терминологическим аппаратом, по направлениям педагогического образования необходимым для осмысления природы художественного текста, и фор- в качестве учебного пособия для студентов мирование умения понимать словесное произведение искусства, занимая высших учебных заведений, активную позицию интерпретатора-соавтора. обучающихся по направлению Рекомендуется студентам, аспирантам и магистрам, заинте- 540300 (050300) Филологическое образование ресованным в приобретении навыков устной и письменной интер- претации художественного текста. ISBN 5-7187-0742-1 ББК 81.2 Англ © И. А. Щирова, 2006 Борей Арт Санкт-Петербург 2006 3 4 CONTENTS Introduction Introduction Author, Reader, Text......................................................................... 4 Author, Reader, Text PART I Fiction (Latin fictiōnem, from fingĕre, to shape, fashion) is 1. ANALYZING ELEMENTS OF FICTION............................... 11 imagined narrative and literature consisting of such narrative, usually Plot and Conflict................................................................................ 11 in prose. Characterization................................................................................. 22 ‘Art is thinking in images’, V. Shklovsky writes. ‘This maxim, Setting................................................................................................ 34 which even high-school students parrot, is nevertheless the starting Image and Imagery............................................................................ 38 point for the erudite philologist who is beginning to put together Theme................................................................................................ 47 some kind of systematic literary theory’ [Shklovsky 1997: 3]. There 2. READING PSYCHOLOGICAL LITERATURE.....................49 exist different views on fiction. Some scholars treat its universe as a 3.WRITING A CRITICAL ANALYSIS........................................55 possible world created by a mental art. Like all types of merely possible worlds, fictional worlds, they say, lack autonomy, reality, and PART II actuality. The acts of fictional characters are entirely specified by the WORKING WITH TEXTS............................................................ 59 text. Characters are made of language and owe their existence to the Sh. Anderson.................................................................................... 59 author’s imagination [Rescher 1983]. Others, however, share a dif- Hands................................................................................................. 60 ferent viewpoint: once we become immersed in a fiction, they main- James Joyce...................................................................................... 69 tain, the characters become real for us, and the world they live in Clay.................................................................................................... 71 momentarily takes the place of the actual world [Lewis 1978, Ryan D.H. Lawrence..................................................................................80 1991]. What remains indisputable in this discussion is the product of The Prussian Officer.......................................................................... 81 the author’s unique imagination – the image’s ineffable richness, F. Scott Fitzerald.............................................................................. 108 showing us the way to a great variety of the author’s mental con- The Great Gatsby............................................................................... 110 structs – the possible worlds of literature. Ernest Hemingway...........................................................................124 Literature is traditionally considered a medium for transmitting Cat in the Rain................................................................................... 125 aesthetic information. The aesthetic (‘more precisely poetic’ ‘as far K. Mansfield..................................................................................... 131 as we deal with verbal material’) function is dominant in the hierar- Her First Ball..................................................................................... 132 chy of basic verbal functions, pointed out by R. Jacobson within a M. Spark........................................................................................... 142 poetic work. Just like in any other verbal message, this work fulfils The Dark Glasses............................................................................... 143 the following six functions: poetic, referential, emotive, conative, S. Hill................................................................................................. 159 phatic, and metalingual. The referential (denotative, cognitive) func- A Bit of Singing and Dancing............................................................160 tion is orientation towards the CONTEXT. The emotive (expressive) function aims at a direct expression of the speaker’s attitude towards Further Reading.................................................................................185 what he is speaking about. It tends to produce an impression of a certain emotion whether true or feigned and is focused on the References.......................................................................................... 187 ADDRESSER. The conative function is orientation towards the ADDRESEE: it finds its purest grammatical expression in the voca- 3 4 5 6 tive and imperative sentences. The phatic function aims at in one direction, as the author is the creator of the text. However, the CONTACT to start and sustain the communication. Whenever the cognitive activity of the reader is necessary for the text ‘to come to addresser and/or the addressee need to check up whether they use the life’: the text cannot begin to exist as a real phenomenon until a same code, speech is focused on the CODE: it performs the metalin- reader actualizes it. Thinking is dialogical by nature: when an author gual (glossing) function. The poetic function focuses on the message sets out to write he is urged by a desire to impart his vision of the ‘for its own sake’. This function is a determining function of verbal world to the reader, even if he sounds seemingly impersonal. A tal- art, whereas in other verbal activities it acts as ‘a subsidiary, acces- ented literary work always affects the reader, reaches his intellect sory constituent’. and stirs his emotions. Thus text is the observable product of a Each of the functions, Jacobson observes, is determined by a dif- writer’s discourse which is the process that created the text, but it ferent constitutive factor, involved in verbal communication. He always needs activation in the process of the reader’s discourse schematizes these constitutive factors, complemented by the basic which aims at the reconstruction of the author’s intended message. functions, as follows: The supremacy of the poetic function over the referential function within a literary work does not obliterate the message, – it CONTEXT makes it ambiguous. The double sensed message finds correspon- (referential) dence in the so-called ‘split reference’ (Jacobson). On the one hand, ADDRESSER MESSAGE ADDRESSEE the creative imagination always produces a reality that is consistent (emotive) (poetic) (conative) with the facts it sees around. No matter how far weird a work of art is it is rooted in reality. A vivid sample is utopian literature, describing 1 ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------- an ideally perfect place or ideal society . On the other hand, it is the author’s unique imagination that gives birth to this fictitious reality CONTACT and it changes it in its unique remarkable way. A literary work, un- (phatic) surprisingly, cannot be subjected to the test of truth: it is neither true CODE nor false. It is a lie in the impersonal general world, but it is the truth METALINGUAL in the individual personified worlds

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