A Course in Narrative Writing (Paperback)

Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. Excerpt from book: Section 3the beauty of her sister Sophia, and by this means some of the spiritual traits of the two girls are brought out and contrasted. Descriptions of dress, manner, bearing, are similarly employed for purposes of characterization, but, as in textit{Robinson Crusoe, description or direct characterization is always in essence narrative, because employed directly in the service of the story. The portraits are not painted for their own sakes, but that we may see and understand, as if it went on before our eyes, the action in which the characters delineated have part. The further development of individual character in textit{The Vicar of Wakefield reacts upon the organization of Further Defini- the story as a whole and upon the nature andssubpio?rthe of its component parts. In the other G; ihe' Turn-1three tales the constituent events or inci-: ing-Point. ] dentS were of a structure relatively simple and unvarying. Only relatively, however, for even the incidents of the folk-tale are, as examination discloses, in reality miniaturetories, each with its own definite outcojne determined by a duelofforces. Thus Jack's first visit to the Giant's house may be analyzed into the forces which further and those which oppose his final successful escape with his plunder. The Giant's wife, after some parley, it will be remembered, admits him to the castle (positive force): inside the castle Jack gets a good meal (positive), and then the Giant knocks at the gate (negative): Jack is hidden in the oven (positive), but the Giant smells "fresh meat" (negative): his wife pacifies him (positive), the Giant falls asleep (positive), Jack steals the hen that lays the golden eggs, and escapes (positive). In like manner might be analyzed any one of the constituenlincidents in Robinson Crusoe, such as, for instance, the rescue...