【正文】 at all. The “fellow beings” in the novel is termed characters. By “fellow beings” is meant not only “human beings” but also “other beings,” such as animals. George Orwell uses animals to represent human beings in his novel Animal Farm. Lewis Carrol creates many lovely animals in his Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland that appeal to both children and adults.I. What is Character?In the introduction we have said that fiction is an image of people in action, moving towards an undeclared end. Thus character is always involved in fiction, even in the story of the simplest action. Sometimes character is at the center of our interest because in character we may see many facets of the people we meet in our daily life and even of ourselves. Fictional character is always character in action and the character gets into action because it is caught in a situation of conflict and he/she is always provided with motivation: he/she has sufficient reasons to act or behave as he /she does. The character is doing something and the reader while reading fiction wants to know the “why” as well as the “what” of the affairs. (Sometimes a character’s motive for an action is not explained on acceptable grounds, for example, the villain in Adgar Allan Poe’story “The TellTale Heart,” and thus the reader feels cheated. In this case, the writer of detective fiction who makes the criminal a mere lunatic has cheated the reader by avoiding the problem of motive.) And generally, the action itself is humanly significant and it ends usually in a shift in or clarification of human values, as displayed in John Updike’s “A amp。7. More works to do: something about the writers of the two stories.5. the plot of the story? 4. What is the climax of the story?2. What part of the story seems like the exposition? Rip Van WinkleII. Read the stories of ‘Rip Van Winkle’(Washington Irving) and ‘David Swan’ (Nathaniel Hawthorne)foreshadowing, crisis) the conclusionfalling exposition some other events climax (the moment4. The three parts of a plot: a beginning (exposition), a middle (suspense or a series of suspense ….foreshadowing… crisis –a moment of high tension), and an end(a climax, the moment of greatest tension…the conclusion—falling action, resolution or denouement). In the world of reality events take place one after another in the natural temporal order, but in the world of fiction it is the novelist’s design that one particular event occur after another particular event. The very word “plot” implies the novelist’s rebellion against the natural law and his endeavor to make meanings out of the happenings that may otherwise be meaningless. “The happenings” may or may not be real happenings.(So what plot is ) A plot is a particular arrangement of happenings in a novel that is aimed at revealing their causal relationships or at conveying the novelist’s ideas. A plot is sometimes called a story line. The most important of the traditional plot is that it should be a plete or unified action, that is, something with a beginning, a middle, and an end.2. What is Plot under the pens of modern novelists and storytellers? And how to understand “Plot” in a story? (“”ppt: ‘The queen died, no one knew why, until it was discovered that it was through grief at the death of the king.’…P. 6 It suspends the timesequence, it moves as far away from the story as its limitations will allow.)1. According to Aristotle what are the six elements of the structure of tragedy?Chapter One Plot4. The Story and the Novel3. What is Fiction? theme。 character。2. The structure and functions of a story1. What is Story? and how social concern is involved in a specific form of human imagination. In addition, students should elevate to the level of cultivating a curiosity for the unknown, thinking cogently and logically, expressing themselves clearly and concisely, and observing the world around them critically and objectively. But most students are still at a loss as to how they can effectively analyze a literary work by themselves in any of these respects, even though they have read plenty of excerpts from representative works in the British and American literary canon. And they tend to have little idea what role the beginning part plays in the whole story, how the plot develops and es to resolution, in what way point of view determines a reader’s understanding of the story, and how the images and symbols are related to the theme. Upon consideration of these factors, we have such course with the intention of cultivating both students’ literary sensibilities and their /your critical power when reading English short stories and novels.English literature is one of the pulsory and most important courses. However, the English literature courses offered are merely taught at the level of learning general information and developing literal understanding. Admittedly, such courses help them/you a lot in their/your acquisition of the English language. But the function of English literature reaches far beyond that. In reading English literature, a student should have the power to discern how human beings translate their experience into artistic expression and representation。IntroductionI. Why do we have such course? how writers, through their creative impulses, convey to us their insights into human destiny and human life。II. Introduction about reading a story“Yes –oh, dear, yes—the novel tells a story.” This is Forster’s remark, which is worth special attention, for he is someone in the trade and with rich experience. In his Aspects of the Novel he lists “story” as the first aspect. People reading novels for stories usually ask questions like “what happened next?” and “and” what would he do next?” These questions attest to the two basic elements of a story. The one is the event and the other the time. A story is a series of happenings arranged in the natural temporal order as they occur. Story is the basis of t