Analyzing a short story.

The parts of the content of a short story are character, action, and theme. Character determines action, action reveals character, and character in action illuminates the theme of the story.

One of the first things we learn when we meet someone is his name. Frequently, it tells us something about him, possibly his nationality. In a story, the name usually establishes whether we are going to become acquainted with a man or woman. A nickname may tell us about the character if it is associated with a personal characteristic. This association is an emphasis by the author that not only tells us something about the character but also suggests that something characteristically of this is going to happen to him.

Besides his name, a person's appearance is another thing we notice about him when we meet him. In a story, a description of a character's physical appearance is a further development that contributes to our understanding of his personality. The author's description of a character's physical appearance may include the character's physique and facial features, his clothes, mannerisms, gestures, or way of speaking. Another way to reveal the character is to show his emotional reactions. Also useful in characterisation is information about a character's attitude toward life, his faith, his standards of right and wrong, his beliefs, his physical and psychological environment. What other characters think of him is a clue to his personality, too. Character is revealed by the choices he makes, what he habitually would do or would not do, how conscious he is of his choices, and how intelligent he is.

In the short story the number of characters is necessary limited, and the story usually develops fully only one CENTRAL CHARACTER. Developing of other characters is determined by how they will contribute to a further revelation of the central character, of his motivations and the changes that take place in him. The central character usually changes in some way for better or worse during the course of a story. Some modern stories do not show such a change in a character, but this is not necessarily a flaw, since the inability of a character to change may be the point of the story. But if the central character does not change, something else must: either another character dependent on the central character, or the course of the action. If, on the other hand, the static nature of the action is essential to the theme, then the change will have to be in the central character. The principle of change is what unites character and action to effect theme. Without the change of some sort, a narrative is merely a happening and not a short story.

Next to analysing how character is revealed, one must analyse how action is developed. Action is what happens to the characters.

The action may be external, the thing that happens to a character as a result of forces outside himself - other characters or his environment or his fate; or it may be internal - the forces that cause conflict within his own personality. In most stories the action is both external and internal, but in some it may be one or the other.

The beginning of the action in a short story is the initial incident, or episode, the middle of the action is the development and the end of the action is the denouement. Between the development of the action and its denouement, a change takes place, either in the central character, another character, or the direction of action. The moment of actual change is the turning point, or climax.

The beginning of the action creates or poses a problem or a conflict. The end of the action is what happens as a result of the solution of the problem. The art of most stories is the expression of the tensions that create the problem. The development of these tensions provides the reader with emotional pleasure of suspense.

Action that proceeded the " now " of the story is explained in the exposition, or background, of the action of the story. This reference to past happenings, necessary for the reader to know in order to understand what is happening in the story, maybe at the beginning of the narrative and during subsequent episodes.

The meaning of the story is what is generally referred to as the theme. The theme may be the central emphasis, may be explicitly stated by the author, as it often is in fable, but in modern short stories theme is usually implied.

Answering these questions will help to define the theme:

1. What have I discovered as a result of reading this story?

2. How does every prominent detail or character and incident of action addup to something?

3. Is there evidence in the story itself to substantiate any generalisation I have made?

4. Does any detail of the story contradict the generalisation I am making? If so, is s in the story, or am I failing to take it into proper focus?.

5. Why does the author repeat certain details? Is there a significant pattern of details?

6. What emotion I feel, and why has the author thought to arouse this particular emotion in me?

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