CHARACTERS

Date: 2015-10-07; view: 592.

NARRATOR

PLOT

Identify the components of the plot structure. When does the climax come?

1) From which point of view is the passage narrated?

a) third-person omniscient

b) first-person

c) limited third-person omniscient

How does the choice of narrative technique effect the impact of the text? It makes it:

b) more detached

c) more immediate and involving

2) Does the narrator express his attitude to any of the characters? Identify the following techniques which he uses to convey his point of view:

- negative/positive connotations

- evaluative epithets

- repetition of key words

- imagery

- irony

- other_______________

3) Which of the following seem to concern the narrator most?

- the events and the situation described

- the feelings of the characters

- their relations

I. Focus on the character of the husband

§ Consider all the details that are provided about his appearance in the text. What do these details suggest?

§ Is the infomation about his occupation and social status given or does the reader have to guess?

§ What information is conveyed through his speech? Find examples of non-standard English usage in his speech. What social class does he belong to? Is it important?

§ What is the effect of the repetition of self- in an expression of self-endurance - a look of self-commiseration - a state of self-suppression - a self-confident air. What aspect of his personality is underlined through the use of repetition?

§ Identify the sentence suggesting his Narcissism.

§ What are his reactions to his wife's words or actions? How do they characterize him?

§ The husband's irritation escalates into a full-scale outburst of bitterness. Trace his mounting tension throughout the story.

§ What psychological state do you associate with the passage:

He shrank, and became white, impersonal.... He seemed to have gone small.

How does it correlate with the first epithet in the opening sentence of the story?

§ How are his emotions revealed:

· named directly

· implied through actions or jestures

· revealed with the help of stylistic means?

§ Comment on the sentence At last he had learned the width of the breach between them. What did the breach consist in?

§ How would you define the tone of his voice in the dialogue?

Calm, angry, menacing, hysterical, controlled, persuasive, other

II. Focus on the character of the wife.

§ ... Are there any details about the girl's physical appearance? What in particular catches the narrator's attention?

§ Focus on her relations with her husband.

o What was her attitude to him? Pick out facts or phrases revealing or suggesting it.

o Compare it to her attitude to her lover and the means reveaing it.

o What means are used to convey her feeling of horror?

o What shows that she was being tortured by the conversation with her husband?

o What expressions present the husband - wife conversation as a battle?

o Which adj-s would you choose to describe his state of mind?

( Frightened, irritated, disappointed, confused, other)

§ What means establish the parralel between the heroine and the roses? What does it suggest?

Analyse the simile by completing the following table.

§ Finde evidence in the text of her:

· high sensitivity

· secretiveness

·

§ What bond did she put on herself?

§ Is she a tragic hero or an obsessed individual who refuses to accept her own destiny? Find evidence in the text which would support your point of view.

§ Which of the following adj-s woud you choose to describe her?

Romantic

Idealistic

Selfish

Stubborn

Irresponsible

Callous

Other

§ Who is responsible for the heroine's behaviour? Justify your answer.

§ In what aspects are the husband and the lover contrasted physically?

§ What techniques does the author use to inform the reader of the madness of the rector's son? What is the effect achieved? What phrases imply it before it is stated directly?

§ Does the author reveal the characters' feelings explicitly or through implications?

§ How are the characters presented? Through:

a) action b) dialogue c) description

Does the author openly guide the reader's response to the characters or is he left to form his own opinion of them?

III. What is the conflict the story based on? Is it between:

- the prevailing morality and sex

- passion and family duties

- different human types

- personal delusions and reality

- __________?

Identify the protagonist and the antagonist.

What accounts for the emptiness of the emotional life of the couple?

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