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Literature

Big Idea Overview and Resources

Part 1: Matters of Life and Death
Part 2: Rewards and Sacrifices
Part 3: Dreams and Reality

Part 1: Matters of Life and Death

Overview

In literature, characters often face life-and-death circumstances that challenge their inner strength. Whether these dangers are real or imaginary, overcoming the fear that they arouse is a true test of courage. The selections in Part 1 explore different encounters with death in which some characters enact the part of predator and others become the prey. The stories also describe situations in which characters gain a renewed appreciation for life.

The narratives included in this section illustrate various conflicts that arise when characters find themselves in dire situations. Some characters experience external conflict in which they struggle against outside forces, such as another person, nature, society, or fate. Psychological or emotional struggles that take place within a character's mind are internal conflicts. A character's psychological struggle about which course of action to take or what constitutes right or wrong are examples of internal conflicts.

Web Resources

Freytag's Pyramid
http://oak.cats.ohiou.edu/~hartleyg/250/freytag.html
Gustav Freytag, a nineteenth-century German novelist, analyzed common patterns in story plots. Here is an illustration of that diagram, also called Freytag's Pyramid, and a definition of each of its patterns. Internal and external conflicts are usually very important to the development of story plots.

What a Plot IS
http://www.storyispromise.com/wstoplo.htm
Bill Johnson, novelist and screenwriter, provides insight on the relationship of plot to story, explaining the difference between what a plot does and what a plot is.

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Part 2: Rewards and Sacrifices

Overview

We make sacrifices in hopes that they will yield greater rewards in the future. Often, the personal sacrifices we make for others reveal how much we care about them. However, sometimes the rewards we had hoped for do not justify the sacrifices made, or the sacrifices that others make for us feel burdensome. The authors in Part 2 examine the different kinds of sacrifices that people make in order to obtain their goals.

The characters in the following selections demonstrate the rewards reaped through the sacrifices they make, as well as the frustrations encountered when outcomes did not meet their expectations. Many of the stories' protagonists, or main characters, revisit childhood events as adults. By doing so, they often gain a better understanding of their family, friends, or themselves. Showing such growth and development are characteristic of dynamic characters, who evidence change. Static characters are those who do not change through the course of the story.

Web Resources

100 Best Characters in Fiction Since 1900
http://www.npr.org/programs/totn/features/2002/mar/020319.characters.html
This site contains a list of the “100 Best Characters in Fiction Since 1900” that was published in Book magazine's March/April 2002 issue. The site also includes a link to the recorded discussion of this list, from National Public Radio's program “Talk of the Nation.”

American Characters
http://www.lili.org/
This site, provided by the Idaho State Library, offers many resources for studying memorable characters in American fiction from works by Mark Twain, Henry David Thoreau, and Zora Neale Hurston, among others.

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Part 3: Dreams and Reality

Overview

The short stories in Part 3 feature characters who reveal secret desires or dreams that conflict with reality. The selections explore how characters try to fulfill their dreams, and how the realization of their dreams does not always fulfill their expectations.

The narratives included in this selection are told from many different points of view. Most are told from the third-person omniscient point of view, in which the narrator knows what each of the characters are thinking and feeling. This third-person narrator is all-knowing, and therefore is not bound by time or place. In contrast, stories told from the first-person point of view are confined by the narrator's perspective, causing the reader to adopt the narrator's perspective on other characters and situations.

Web Resources

Point of View
http://www.delmar.edu/engl/wrtctr/handouts/pointofview.pdf
This site explains in more detail the different types of point of view, including omniscient, objective, and first, second, and third person, using examples of each.

How to Read a Novel: Some Places to Begin
http://www.victorianweb.org/technique/howto.novel.html
This site contains helpful tips on how to approach a novel, including the identification of point of view and the author's narrative technique.

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