CONTENTS

Course Description………………………………………………………………………………..2

Course Objectives…………………………………………………………………………………3

Unit 1: introduction to Literature………………………………………………………………….4

Unit 2: Genres of Literature (Prose)……………………………………………………………..11

Unit 3: Genres of Literature (Drama)……………………………………………………………24

Unit 4: Stories and Meanings in Fiction…………………………………………………………29

Unit 5: Genres of Literature (Poetry)…………………………………………………………….45

Unit 6: Tragedy and Comedy in Drama…………………………………………….....................55

Unit 7: Scorpion Orchid (A Novel)……………………………………………………………...65

Unit 8: Literary Devices or Figures of Speech…………………………………………………..71

References………………………………………………………………………………………..82

1
COURSE DESCRIPTION

As an introduction to basic literary forms, Introduction to English literature is a preparation for

The Rise of the Novel, Appreciating Drama and Appreciating Poetry. Its primary purpose is to

provide learners with a foundation of elementary skills necessary for reading literature, those

skills that will be more fully developed in the following introductory courses. It helps to identify

the explanations of drama, novel, poetry and Introduces learners to the basic literary terms

required for understanding a piece of literature. The book also develops a taste for appreciating

literature. It differentiates between the general background of diverse literary movements

beginning with Old English, moving through other literary phases and ending with Modern

English Literature and categorising the social, historical and cultural background of the different

periods or ages in literature.

The study of literature provides a challenging opportunity to develop various useful academic

skills in reading, writing, thinking and researching. Apart from familiarizing students with the

basic forms and features of three genres--short-fiction, poetry, drama, and non-fiction-- the

course will introduce basic strategies designed to groom students as lifelong lovers of reading

and develop their analytical and rhetorical skills.

2
COURSE OBJECTIVES

After completing this course, you will be able to do the following:

i. Understand the relevance of the reading, discussion and enjoyment of a variety of

literary works and genres;

ii. Use a vocabulary of terms pertaining to the three main genres of literature;

iii. Use interpretive reading strategies for literary texts;

iv. Recognize and appreciate the elements of literature and the techniques at the disposal of

authors;

v. Respond critically to texts by writing clear, coherent, well-supported essays;

vi. Provide an interpretation of texts that infers meaning without dismissing or distorting

significant detail.

3
 UNIT 1

INTRODUCTION TO LITERATURE

Objectives

By the end of this lesson, you will be able to:

i. define literature,

ii. identify the types of literature, and

iii. discuss the importance of literature in our lives.

WHAT IS LITERATURE?

Literature can be defined as the representation of human experience, or a representation of

human experience, through beautiful or appropriate language to create a work of art having a

permanent value. This representation of human experience is depicted in drama, prose, and

poetry, which are the genres of literature. Literature is often seen as written works of art. This

means that anything we read can be called literature. Things we read include our textbooks,

storybooks, instructions on how to use the gadgets that we buy, the dosage of medicine written

on the bottle or packet, advertisements on billboards, notices on the school notice board, and

writings on even cars and buses.

They are described as works because certain people wrote them. For example, someone wrote

the text you are reading now, wrote the stories you have read, the medicine manufacturer wrote

the dosage on the bottle or packet, and so on.

4
In addition, literary works are called works of art because they have beauty. The beauty is in the

way the works are structured. Poems, for example, have lines arranged in special ways, and a

number of these lines make a stanza. The beauty is also seen in the use of language. We find

proverbs and wise sayings thought-provoking or simply amusing or both. Don’t you smile when

you hear a proverb such as: ‘If no one praises him, the lizard that had jumped off the tall iroko

tree will praise himself by nodding’?

The essential thing that these literary pieces do is to pass on information. They give information

about our culture, the totality of our way of life. Our culture includes everything that identifies a

group as a specific group of people. According to some writers, it includes the language we

speak, the occupations we engage in, how we marry, how we treat our children, the kind of

training we give them, and even how we die.

How, for example, do cultures in which cloth weaving is done a pass on this trade to the younger

generation? It is through telling the younger generation how to do the weaving. If your father

weaves, he will tell you how to handle the equipment. He will also guide you through the spoken

word and by example to weave. In cultures where there is reading and writing, the weave process

to go through may be written down. It then becomes written literature. If it is not written down

and is passed on from one generation to another, it is usually called the oral Literature of the

people. So you see, literature passes on information from one generation to another.

Apart from giving information, these writings affect our emotions. This means that when we

listen to or read some literature, we feel happy; others make us sad or make us have other

feelings such as anger or pride.

5
Of course, literature also records our thoughts. It tells what we think about life and living, what

we believe and why we believe in those things, what we consider as the good life, what we

consider as acceptable or unacceptable ways of living, and so on. Many families know herbs that

can be used in curing malaria. How did they get to know this? Someone had passed it on to

someone who also passed it on. Today, it has reached someone else who will pass it on. Perhaps

later, it will be written down. We enjoy listening to stories that teach us lessons about life and

living. These teach us what we think about life and living in our culture. Once again, remember,

if it is written down, we will call it written literature; if it is not written down, we will call it

oral literature.

LITERARY AND NON-LITERARY FORMS OF LITERATURE

All literature can be put into two broad groups. These are:

i. Non-Literary form

ii. Literary form

1. THE NON-LITERARY FORM

Some literature gives factual information. For example, the writing on the medicine bottle will

give factual information on the medicine dosage for adults and children. If a child is given the

dosage for an adult, the child may be hurt. Our textbooks also give us factual information.

Again, the English grammar textbook gives us factual information on the English language. For

example, such a textbook will tell us that words that specify names are called nouns, and we can

see examples of nouns in the textbook.

6
Once again, even the non-literary form of literature is not always written; it can also be passed on

by word of mouth. That is to say that your great grandparents told your grandparents; your

grandparents, in turn, told your parents; your parents told you; you tell your children, and the

information is passed on, in this manner, from generation to generation. Much of the history of

our people has been passed on by word of mouth. For example, we have mentioned the herbs

which can be used in curing malaria. If you are given that herb and apply it as it should be, it will

cure malaria sickness. We can also talk about great men and women in our cultures. We can find

in our history several of these great men and women. The oral accounts of these men and

women who lived in our towns and villages are true accounts; they are the kinds of literature we

shall refer to as non-literary.

2. THE LITERARY FORM

Some other kinds of literature give us information that is not factual. The stories that we read are

not always factual. The writers create some stories. These works are, therefore, referred to as

imaginative works of art. They are called so because they come from the imagination of the

writers. They are also called creative works of art because the writers create them.

All cultures have the unwritten forms of these creative works of art. In Ghana, most of us are

familiar with Ananse stories. They are interesting and entertain us, but also they teach us

lessons about life. Of course, they are not true stories, but we know that they are valuable in

teaching us to lead good lives.

When we talk about literature as a subject, we are thinking about the literary form of literature.

These include stories, plays and poems.

7
Think about other literary forms of literature you have ever used in school. Then, write down

two titles of such texts.

THE IMPORTANCE OF LITERATURE

To understand the relevance of literature, we must ask ourselves what makes literature so

important in our lives and, secondly, how literature influences society. According to one British

scholar and novelist called C.S Lewis: "Literature adds to reality, it does not simply describe

it. It enriches the necessary competencies that daily life requires and provides; and in this

respect, it irrigates the deserts that our lives have already become." The above statement is

perhaps the most appropriate description of the importance of literature in our lives. Literature

reminds us of stories, epics, sacred scriptures and classical works of ancient and modern times.

However, as stated in the quotation above, the literature describes reality and adds to it. Yes,

literature is not merely a depiction of reality; it is rather a value-addition.

 It is through reading literary and poetic works that one understands life. They help a person

take a closer look at the different facets of life. In many ways, it can change one's

perspective towards life. The lives of brilliant achievers and individuals, who have made a

valuable contribution to society, are sketched in their biographies. These works give the

readers an insight into the lives of these eminent people while also serving as a bible of

ideals.

 Reading literature is a pleasurable, entertaining activity that offers readers the potential to

escape from the troubles of daily life. Beyond this, literature survives because of its capacity

to entertain readers. It also has the power to provoke thought in readers, making it a leisure

activity that is also intellectually productive. Literature has the power to impart a wide

8
 variety of experiences to readers. A story can expose readers to different places, periods,

viewpoints and cultures. Readers can gain experiences through literature they would never

have access to in ordinary life.

 Literature’s ability to capture the imagination and depict the lives of others also increases

readers’ ability to empathize with others. Literature also helps in developing critical-thinking

skills. Readings and discussions of literature force readers to make reasoned judgments

about character motivations, cause and effect, and critical analysis of a plot.

 Literature serves as an enormous information base. For example, famous inventors' research

works and literary works by notable scientists often narrate stories of their ground-breaking

discoveries and inferences. Moreover, ongoing developments in science and technology are

documented so that the world can know about them. In addition, several ancient scriptures

relating stories of human evolution and narratives of human life in those times have been of

tremendous help to humanity. Thus, literature has always served as an authentic source of

information worldwide.

 Truly, languages are the building blocks of literature. However, literature study cannot be

restricted to only studying languages. Likewise, literature cannot be confined to an

educational curriculum. Literature lays the foundation of an enriched life; it adds ‘life’ to

'living'.

SUMMARY

In this lesson, we have learnt that:

i. literature refers to the experiences that we are told or that are written for us to read,

ii. Literature gives factual information, but can also be from the imagination,

9
iii. we study poems, plays and novels at school as the literary forms or genres of literature

iv. Literature is important in informing and entertaining us.

Revision Questions

1. What is Literature?

2. Why do we have to study Literature?

3. What can literature offer to humanity?

10
 UNIT 2

THE GENRES OF LITERATURE (PROSE)

THE GENRE

What we study as literature in school are of three kinds: poetry, drama, and prose. We often

refer to them as the genre, a French word that means ‘kind’. That is to say that, in school, we

study the three kinds of literature: poems, plays, and novels. We shall discuss each of these

kinds of literature in detail in another lesson.

WRITTEN LITERATURE (PROSE FICTION)

Objective

By the end of this lesson, you will be able to:

i. identify some characteristics of written prose fiction,

ii. identify some techniques and language of fiction.

WHAT IS FICTION?

Fiction is used to refer to writing using events created by the writers. The story told in fiction

will be on a particular idea. This idea is something that happens in real life. The story will try to

explain something about this idea. This idea is what the story will be all about. This idea

is termed the subject or subject matter. The subject could be family life, war, religious rites,

love, hatred, or anything in human life and living.

11
Therefore fiction is any form of narrative that deals either partially or completely with events

that are not factual but rather imaginary and invented or created by its author(s). Traditionally,

fiction includes drama, short stories, novels, fables, fairy tales, allegory, myth, and poetry.

However, it is also applied to films, comic books, and video games in recent times.

FORMS OF FICTION

This section looks briefly at some forms of narrative. They include allegory, parables, fables,

and anecdotes. Parables and fables teach a moral lesson; anecdotes generally illustrate a point,

and jokes entertain through humour. Furthermore, anecdotes and jokes and even parables and

fables usually lack the complicated plots or the structure of most short stories.

i. Allegory

An allegory is a form of extended metaphor in which objects, persons, and actions in a narrative

are equated with meanings outside the narrative itself (cf. Hough 1980:10-11, Holman and

Harmon (1986:10). It is a form of indirection where a text has a level of meaning outside its

superficial meaning. An allegory is a symbolic fictional narrative that conveys a secondary

meaning not explicitly outlined in the literal sense. It encompasses such forms as fable, parable

and apologue and may involve either a literary or an interpretative process.

ii. Parable

A parable is a short narrative with an oblique (indirect) style and a moral meaning widely used

by philosophers and religious teachers of ancient times. It generally uses appropriate events and

situations familiar to listeners or readers to present or illustrate a profound truth or teaching. Its

lessons are based on the human experience. It typically begins with a smile and issues and of

interest.

12
Because of its obliqueness, it may need an explanation and afterwards relate it part by part to

aspects of the truth being imparted. The most famous parable are those of Jesus Christ recorded

in the synoptic Gospel, e.g. The prodigal Son, The Sower and The Good Samaritan. The

parable differs from the fable; it deals with human beings, everyday events, and life experiences.

iii. Fable

A fable is a short story that illustrates a moral principle that is usually made explicit at the close

by the narrator or one of the characters. In most fables, the protagonists are talking birds, animals

and supernatural beings whose words and actions reflect human behaviour. Such tales are often

told to or written for children, but they are usually crafted so well that adults can also enjoy

them. Unfortunately, when used for satirical purposes, they only appear for children.

Fables may also deal with supernatural or unusual incidents, and they often have their origin or

sources from the people’s folklore. They are based on the socio-cultural beliefs and perceptions

of the people. If a fable has all its characters being animals, it is called a beast fable. Animal

fables are very popular in most societies as indirect forms to point out human follies, bullying,

oppression and maladministration. Fables were popular in Greek and Roman history. Animals

are very popular in Ghanaian folktales, especially the Ananse stories, where Ananse, ‘Spider’

who is the popular trickster, assumes different categories of human behaviour.

iv. Anecdote

An anecdote is a short account of a particular event, episode or incident, a story about some real

person or event. It is often biographical, gossipy and intended to entertain. According to Holman

13
(1980:21), “the term anecdote most frequently refers to a narrated incident in the life of an

important person and should lay claim to an element of truth.” It usually has a short narrative

and interesting incidents put together as a unit. An anecdote does not have a complex plot but

normally relates to a single episode. It dates back to ancient times and comprises books like

Anecdotes of Percy. In current times booklets about people like Kwame Nkrumah, Nyerere, J.A.

Kufour, Mugabe, Clinton and Mandela could be considered anecdotes.

ELEMENTS OF FICTION

Though the dominant forms of fiction that we see today (namely the short story and the novel)

are relatively new, narratives and storytelling are as old as human history. Each culture and

language group can trace its beginnings to an establishing myth, folktale, epic, or romance

narrative. These early stories were first passed from generation to generation through oral

tradition before the widespread use and technology for writing became practical. These earliest

narratives have been recorded much as contemporary writers commit their works to history.

Plot

The arrangement of events in a narrative is called its plot. The significance of the plot in a piece

of fiction, like the significance of all other elements, will vary. For instance, in a piece of

detective fiction involving a complicated crime scenario, plot details will be of the utmost

importance. However, in many modern short stories, writers are far more concerned with other

elements (character, tone, symbols, etc.), and the plot may not play a significant role in

understanding the piece.

14
A typical plot consists of a tripartite (three-part) action structure: rising action, climax, and

falling action. The rising action of work consists of the main character’s attempts to overcome

whatever obstacles stand in their way. This struggle usually results in the greatest dramatic

moment of the story, the climax. After this climax follows the story’s falling action, also called

the denouement. The engine that drives this entire plot structure is conflict. Conflict may be

internal or external. Stories may contain several different conflicts of internal or external

natures. The main purpose of such conflict is to create a sense of suspense in the reader to foster

continued interest in the narrative. This structure may also be referred to as the obstacle-

anxiety-relief cycle.

A writer will often play with a reader’s expectation of the plot. In stories such as these, irony

can turn even typical, mundane scenarios into interesting stories.

Setting

The settings of a story refer to the time, place and culture in which the action occurs. The setting

is extremely significant in every fiction to make the background clearer. Besides time and place,

the setting may also include weather and vegetation. The makeup and behaviour of fictional

characters often depend not only on their characteristics but also on their environment.

Characters set under cold winters will behave differently from those in summer; those in the

forest area will differ from those on the coast. Setting can be general, specific or very detailed. A

place and the period in which the character grew up can profoundly affect his behaviour. The

issue of setting is so important that, in some cases, the entire action of a novel or play is

determined by the locale in which it is set. Sometimes the main locale of an action plays an

important role in the readers’ or audiences’ imagination. If a writer focuses his or her writing on

a specific locality or region, the writing is sometimes known as regional literature.

15
Character

According to Aristotle, the most significant element of any narrative work was its character.

Aristotle defined a story as “character in action,” meaning that our human nature cannot help

but reveal itself through our activity. Our interest in the character in a fictional work is rooted in

our identification with other people, fictional or otherwise. Therefore, it is important to pay

attention to how characters are created in a novel. The process is called characterization. It

includes:

i. Description: this includes the physical details about the characters that the writer

provides and how they change and develop.

ii. Dialogue: characters often give important clues when they engage in talk. We also

learn a lot about the character from what they say in their own words.

iii. Thoughts and Feelings: are the ‘inner life’ of a character. If revealed, they provide a

rich source of information about the character.

iv. Actions and Reactions: how characters behave in different situations informs their

perception.

v. Imagery and Symbolism: these involve, respectively, things that affect our senses

(e.g. sight, hearing, touch, taste and smell) and things or ideas that stand for

something else, e.g. gold for riches of our land in the national flag. Symbols and

images are often central to our attempt to define characters and their actions.

Identifying or describing a character is basic in the overall process of interpreting a text.

Attention should also be given to examining the relationship between characters, which reflects

and develops the tension or conflict in the novel and themes.

16
Furthermore, characters fall under two broad categories: Flat and Round or Realistic characters.

A flat character is usually a type or representative of a concept, value or people. It offers very

little change and usually hints at what it stands for by its name. The character of Ananse, for

example, is a type.

A round character (sometimes called lifelike or realistic character) is also called because it grows

or changes in the course of a novel. The changes that occur in a round character may be physical

or ideological, resulting in changes in its values, ideas, or preferences.

Point of View

The narrator’s relationship to the story is called point of view. Since the point of view affects

every line of the story, it is one of the most important decisions a writer makes in creating his or

her story. Each type of storyteller has advantages and disadvantages. While a first-person

narrator creates a level of closeness to the text, it limits the reader’s access to only one way of

seeing the story’s world. Conversely, an omniscient narrator may satisfy any curiosity a reader

may have about the character or setting, but such authorial power may seem like a barrier

between the reader and the text. Finally, the less frequently used objective narrator may seem

like a positive compromise, but it can also appear cold and unfeeling since it lacks any emotional

or psychological input from the storyteller. Each novel you have read is either written in the

First Person Narrative or a Third Person Narrative. These are the two main types of narrative

techniques.

First Person Narrator is the type of narrator who is part of the novel or a character. For

example, if one of us in this room tells the story of this class, then that narrator will be the first

person narrator. The first person narrator is deemed a subjective narrator because he or she

17
will not tell the story to make himself or herself look bad. The easiest way to identify a first

person narrator is to use personal pronouns ‘I’, ‘we’, ‘us’ etc.

On the other hand, the Third Person Narrator is the type of narrator who, unlike the first

person narrator, is outside the story or not a character in the story. So again, if somebody who is

not in this class, say a journalist, tell the story of this class, that person will be said to be a third

person narrator. The narrator often uses the third person pronouns, such as ‘he’, ‘she’, or ‘they.’

The author’s tone is also related to the selection of point of view, and these factors help create

the story’s mood for the reader.

DICTION AND STYLE

Diction refers to the choice of words used in literary work (or words in a literary work).

A writer’s diction may be characterised, for example, by archaic, mono, or poly syllabic words.

Diction may also be described according to differences between formal and colloquial, abstract

and concrete and literal and figurative language.

In literature, diction is analysed to reveal how a passage or a writer creates tone, describes a

character or a scene etc. or creates meaning.

Diction is further divided into two types: Denotation and Connotation. Denotation is the literal

meaning of a word. On the other hand, Connotation is the attitude and feelings associated with

a word. For example, red, literary (denotatively) means a colour. However, certain signs,

attitudes, and emotions are associated with the colour red. These include ‘stop’ (in traffic),

danger, aggression and injury.

18
Style is expressing ideas in writing or speech by selecting and arranging words based on clarity,

differences and accuracy. Simply put, it is how a writer tells a story.

Theme

The main idea expressed in a work of fiction may be called its theme. Correctly understood, all

other narrative elements contribute to the making of a theme. Every choice that a writer makes --

the events of the plot, the descriptions of the characters, and the selection of the setting -- is

geared toward conveying with the greatest precision his or her intended message to the reader.

Unlike life in the real world, nothing is accidental in a fictional universe. Even seemingly

random events were imagined and written by an intelligent being (the writer) to provoke a

reaction in the reader. In this respect, properly understanding the theme of work involves

accounting for all the author's choices. A theme is the central idea(s) in a novel or a text.

Symbol

Any object in a story whose meaning transcends its literal definition is a symbol. While not

every object needs to be treated with weightiness and significance, symbols can be an important

facet in understanding a story. Objects that frequently reappear in a text, that are described in

peculiar ways, or are given special attention or focus are often symbolic.

ELEMENTS OF NON-FICTION

Though the writer of fiction deals in the imaginary and the writer of non-fiction deals in the real,

both use the same basic techniques in their works. The purpose of a nonfiction work may be to

19
inform, to entertain, to persuade, to analyse, or simply to tell a story, much as a fiction writer

does.

Nonfiction works may be in short or long forms. The most common short form for nonfiction is

the essay. Essays may be on any subject and can vary in length from a few paragraphs to many

pages. Though there are an infinite variety of essays, the main types may be broken into four

categories:

1. The narrative essay, which tells a story, usually from the life or experience of its author.

2. The descriptive essay, which seeks to communicate a message about or the significance

of a person, place, object, or event through description.

3. The expository essay, which informs the reader of important facts about a subject and

tends to be more objective and formal.

4. The persuasive essay, which strives to convince the reader of some stance, belief, or

opinion through an appeal to the reader’s sense of logic, ethics, and/or emotion.

Many essays are hybrids of these forms and combine purposes. For instance, an essay may begin

by relating the writer’s personal experience (narrative) and then move toward an in-depth

discussion of a particular person, place, or idea that he encountered (descriptive). The

possibilities, therefore, are limitless.

In longer forms, personal nonfiction writing may take the form of autobiography or memoir.

One of the great appeals of nonfiction writing is the level of intimacy and interaction the reader

has with the authorial personality and voice. Whether formal or informal, the nonfiction writer,

20
through the medium of printed language, is able to communicate directly to the reader in a way

that is more sustained, direct, and comprehensive than human conversation often allows. In this

way, the reader is often able to know and understand a writer better than he can his own friends

and family.

Conclusion

The unit has looked at the definition, main features and elements of fiction and forms of

narratives. We have seen that a fiction is made-up story, non-fiction and an unreal product of the

human imagination devoid of the truth. Fiction is an imaginative work and a narrative made-up

of a sequence of events. A fiction is a narrative writing drawn from the imagination of the author

rather than from history or fact.

The unit further looked briefly at some forms of narratives. They included allegory, parable,

fables and anecdotes. Parables and fables teach a lesson or moral, anecdote generally illustrate a

point, and jokes entertain through humour. An allegory is a form of extended metaphor in which

objects, persons, and actions in narrative are equated with meaning that lie outside the narrative

itself.

The elements of fiction discussed in this unit were: point of view, setting, style, character, plot

and theme. Each of these elements has some types and components that come under it. Point of

view refers to the focus and perspective from which the story is presented or told to the reader or

listener. It is the vantage point from which the author presents or tells the actions of the story.

There are three main points of view namely:

(1) first person

(2) the third person singular and

21
(3) the third person omniscient.

The setting of a story refers to the time, place and culture in which the action occurs. The setting

is extremely significant in every fiction to provide the background, to the story.

In literature, style refers to a distinctive manner of expression or a characteristic way of saying

things. Style involves the selection of words (diction): sentence structures (syntax) and figurative

devices that the individuality of each author. Character refers to believable and consistent

people that authors create to act in their stories. Characters could be major or minor, round or

flat, dynamic or static. The plot is an author’s careful arrangement of incidents of a narrative.

The theme is the dominant or central idea of a work of literature.

Revision Questions

1. What is fiction? What are the main features of Fiction?

2. Write short notes on the following: plot, point of view, theme, and character.

3. Discuss character as manifested in fiction.

22
 4. What is the difference between (a) a Dynamic and (b) a Static character?

5. Discuss the main elements of a plot of a story, illustrate them with a short story.

6. Write short notes on the following:

i. Fable

ii. Parable

iii. Allegory

iv. anecdote

UNIT 3

THE GENRES OF LITERATURE (DRAMA)

Introduction

23
Drama, also called a play, like prose fiction, it has its own unique features. But there are others

which it shares with the other genres. The teacher needs to make students aware of the elements

or features that are distinctive and those which are shared. For example, all three genres are

works of the imagination, even if they are inspired by real incidents or events.

ELEMENTS OF DRAMA

Dialogue

The term may be defined as a conversation or speech between two or more characters. Dialogue

is a primary feature of drama, although it is also used in prose and in dramatic poetry.

Act

(a) A play or drama is a conventionally divided into acts. An Act is a major division of the

action (what characters do). Another way of putting it is that what characters do or say,

among others, is divided into Acts. Some plays have five, four or even three Acts.

(b) A Scene is a unit of an Act. As a unit or sub-division, the scene breaks up the action into

smaller bits without affecting the time and setting of the Act. These breaks also mark

stages in the development of the plot.

Characters and Characterisation

Characters are persons invented by the playwright or dramatist. The feature mostly in prose

fiction and drama. In most types of poetry, poets use the first person ‘I’ who may also be referred

to as the persona.

24
The term ‘characterisation’ is used to show how characters develop in the play or prose fiction,

through what they say, do, and what other characters say about them. The major character is

called the protagonist, and the one who opposes this major character or hero is the antagonist.

Chorus

It can be one character or a group of characters who perform the function of commenting on the

action and predicting future events based on its knowledge of the present and past events which

affect the fortunes of the characters. Not all plays use the chorus.

Cast

Note that the cast are the performers of the play or drama. They assume roles played by the

characters, but they are not the characters of the play.

Performance

A play or drama is usually written to be performed on stage or in a theatre. This is an essential

differences between the play and prose fiction or poetry. However, excepts from a novel may be

performed, just as some poems are performed.

Stage/Theatre

The stage is a structure specifically built for performers to act their different assumed roles.

Usually, stages are separated from the audience by curtains which are raised to reveal the actors

or players at the beginning of a play, and lowered to mark the end of acts, as well as the end of

the play or performance.

25
At the end of the play, there is the curtain call when the curtain is raised finally for the actors or

performers to be introduced to the audience in their own persons and to receive the audience’s

applause as they bow.

Other things associated with the Stage are props, lighting system and costumes. These are

indicated in the stage directions.

SHARED ELEMENTS

Apart from the elements mentioned above which are, to a large extent, peculiar to the play or

drama, there are others which occur in prose fiction and poetry also. These are a few of them.

Plot

This term is used to mark the development of the action, especially in drama and in prose fiction.

Plot is used to refer to how events unfold from beginning to end. Plays may have main plots and

sub plots. Events unfold in stages, from the beginning, which is described as the exposition, to a

state of crises, which is the climax, and wind to a point where issues are all tidied up, which is

the denouement or resolution.

Conflict

This is essential to both drama and prose fiction. Conflict comes about as characters struggle to

take side on an issue, which may be internally generated; e.g. a character attempting to choose

between good and evil. Conflict may also be externally generated, as when a character battles

with the forces of nature or with the state. Indeed, there are many other factors that generate

conflict.

Setting, Mood, Atmosphere

26
These terms are also applicable to prose fiction and poetry. While setting refers to the time and

place of the action, mood and atmosphere are felt through the power of language.

Suspense

The term ‘suspense’ is used in relation to plot. The gap between our expectation of how events

will unfold and how characters respond to them is what creates suspense.

Theme

This often described or defined as the central idea in a literary work, for example, the theme of

The dilemma of a Ghost may be described as the conflict between two cultures.

TYPES OF DRAMA

We identify two major types of drama; namely; Comedy and Tragedy. A play which is

described as a comedy will normally have its conflicts resolved happily. At the end of the play all

the misunderstandings are amicably and happily ended. However, a tragic play ends in suffering

and death, even for some of the characters, including the protagonist.

However, there is also the tragicomedy, in which conflicting events threaten disaster for the

protagonist; but there is a reversal and things end happily thereafter.

Other types of drama include oral drama, such as festivals, and the melodrama and the

pantomime.

Conclusion

27
This unit considered the definition and elements of drama including characterisation,

performance, plot, style, setting and theme. It further looked at issues like performance, reading

directions and motivation.

Drama is a story told in action by actors who perform to portray the substance of the literary

work based on the nature and elements of performance. Drama is intended to portray life or to

tell a story usually involving conflicts and the motions through actions and dialogue. It is

typically designed for theatrical performance on the stage.

Revision Questions

1. Discuss the following as they pertain to Drama: Character, Plot, Theme and style.

2. Give brief definitions of the following: (a) climax (b) dynamic character (c) static

character

3. Discuss character and its main characteristics in Drama.

4. Discuss the following as seen in the plot of Drama: exposition, climax and

denouement.

UNIT 4

28
 STORIES AND MEANINGS IN FICTION

INTRODUCTION TO SHORT STORY

Short Story as a Genre

The word "genre" is French for "type." Applied to literature, "genre" is a general term used to

refer the types of imaginative literature. While there are many types of literature, the basic genres

include short stories, poetry, drama, and novels.

What is a Short Story?

A short story is fictional work of prose that is shorter in length than a novel. The format of short

story is often narrative that tends to be more pointed than longer works of fiction, such as

novellas (in the 20th and 21st century sense) and novels or books. Usually a short story focuses

on one incident, has a single plot, a single setting, a small number of characters, and covers a

short period of time.

Short Story has been defined in different ways such as:

1. A piece of fictional writing usually less than 5000 words that contains these basic

elements: characters, setting, plot, conflict, resolution, climax, dialogue, protagonist, and

antagonist.

2. A short story is a brief work of fiction. The short story resembles the longer novel but

generally has a simpler plot and setting. In addition, the short story tends to reveal

character at a crucial moment rather than to develop it through many incidents.

3. This is a form of prose fiction, a creative non-poetic kind of composition.

Components of Short Story

29
A short story may have all the elements of a short novel - complete plot and developed

characters – but, because of the lack of space, they tend to be structured quite differently from

novels.

Some of the key components of a successful short story are:

Integrity: It should form a coherent whole. This means that everything language, dialogue, etc.

should contribute to the overall effect. A novel may ramble, but a short story can’t.

Economy: There cannot be a long introduction. The reader has to get involved quickly; the

story's themes and mood need to be established.

Epiphany: Typically, something has to change in the course of the story - either the character(s)

learn something or their lives change decisively, or we (the readers) learn something or have our

perceptions challenged in some way. This moment of "showing" is what the great short story

writer James Joyce called epiphany. A similar idea is the "twist in the tale."

Ending: A good short story needs to give the reader a feeling of closure, or at least a sense of

having read something complete. Otherwise it's just a sketch.

A Short Story is based on the following components:

i. Setting

ii. Plot

iii. Conflict

iv. Character

v. Point of View

vi. Theme

30
Setting:

The time and location in which a story takes place is called the setting. For some stories the

setting is very important, while for others it is not. There are several aspects of a story's setting

to consider when examining how setting contributes to a story (some, or all, may be present in a

story):

a) Place - geographical location. Where is the action of the story taking place?

b) Time - When is the story taking place? (Historical period, time of day, year, etc.)

c) Weather conditions - Is it rainy, sunny, stormy, etc.?

d) Social conditions - What is the daily life of the characters like? Does the story contain

local colour (writing that focuses on the speech, dress, mannerisms, customs, etc. of a

particular place)?

e) Mood or atmosphere - What feeling is created at the beginning of the story? Is it bright

and cheerful or dark and frightening?

Plot

The plot is how the author arranges events to develop his basic idea; it is the sequence of events

in a story or play. The plot is a planned, logical series of events having a beginning, middle, and

end. The short story usually has one plot so it can be read in one sitting. There are five essential

parts of plot:

a) Introduction - The beginning of the story where the characters and the setting is

revealed.

b) Rising Action - This is where the events in the story become complicated and the

conflict in the story is revealed (events between the introduction and climax).

31
 c) Climax - This is the highest point of interest and the turning point of the story. The

reader wonders what will happen next; will the conflict be resolved or not?

d) Falling action - The events and complications begin to resolve themselves. The reader

knows what has happened next and if the conflict was resolved or not (events between

climax and denouement).

e) Denouement - This is the final outcome or untangling of events in the story.

It is helpful to consider climax as a three-fold phenomenon:

i. the main character receives new information

ii. accepts this information (realizes it but does not necessarily agree with it)

iii. acts on this information (makes a choice that will determine whether or not he/she gains

his objective).

Conflict:

Conflict is essential to plot. Without conflict there is no plot. It is the opposition of forces

which ties one incident to another and makes the plot move. Conflict is not merely limited to

open arguments; rather it is any form of opposition that faces the main character. Within a

short story there may be only one central struggle, or there may be one dominant struggle

with many minor ones.

There are two types of conflict are:

a) External - A struggle with a force outside one's self.

32
b) Internal - A struggle within one's self; a person must make some decision, overcome

pain, quiet his/her temper, resist an urge, etc.

There are four dimensions of conflict

1) Man vs. Man (physical) - The leading character struggles with his physical strength

against other men, forces of nature, or animals.

2) Man vs. Circumstances (classical) - The leading character struggles against fate, or

the circumstances of life facing him/her.

3) Man vs. Society (social) - The leading character struggles against ideas, practices,

or customs of other people.

4) Man vs. Himself or Herself (psychological) - The leading character struggles with

himself/herself; with his/her own soul, ideas of right or wrong, physical limitations,

choices, etc.

Character

There are two meanings for the word character:

1) The person in a work of fiction.

2) The characteristics of a person.

1. Persons in a work of fiction - Antagonist and Protagonist:

33
 Short stories use few characters. One character is clearly central to the story with all major

events having some importance to this character - he/she is the PROTAGONIST. The

opposer of the main character is called the ANTAGONIST.

2. The Characteristics of a Person

In order for a story to seem real to the reader, its characters must seem real. Characterization

is the information the author gives the reader about the characters. The author may reveal a

character in several ways:

i. his/her physical appearance

ii. what he/she says, thinks, feels and dreams

iii. what he/she does or does not do

iv. what others say about him/her and how others react to him/her

Characters are convincing if they are: consistent, motivated, and life-like (resemble real people).

Characters can be of different types. i.e.

1. Individual - round, many sided and complex personalities.

2. Developing -dynamic, many sided personalities that change, for better or worse, by the

end of the story.

3. Static -Stereotype, have one or two characteristics that never change and are

emphasized e.g. brilliant detective, drunk, scrooge, cruel stepmother, etc.

Point of View:

34
Point of view is defined as the angle from which the story is told. i.e.

1) Innocent Eye: The story is told through the eyes of a child (his/her judgment being

different from that of an adult).

2) Stream of Consciousness: The story is told so that the reader feels as if he is inside the

head of one character and knows all their thoughts and reactions.

3) First Person: The story is told by the protagonist or one of the characters who interacts

closely with the protagonist or other characters (using pronouns I, me, we, etc.). The

reader sees the story through this person's eyes as he/she experiences it and only knows

what he/she knows or feels.

4) Omniscient: The author can narrate the story using the omniscient point of view. He

can move from character to character, event to event, having free access to the thoughts,

feelings and motivations of his characters and he introduces information where and when

he chooses.

There are two main types of omniscient point of view

i. Omniscient Limited: The author tells the story in third person (using pronouns they,

she, he, it, etc.). We know only what the character knows and what the author allows

him/her to tell us. We can see the thoughts and feelings of characters if the author

chooses to reveal them to us.

ii. Omniscient Objective: The author tells the story in the third person. It appears as

though a camera is following the characters, going anywhere, and recording only what is

seen and heard. There is no comment on the characters or their thoughts. No

interpretations are offered. The reader is placed in the position of spectator without the

author there to explain. The reader has to interpret events on his own.

35
Theme

The theme in a piece of fiction is its controlling idea or its central insight. It is the author's

underlying meaning or main idea that he is trying to convey. The theme may be the author's

thoughts about a topic or view of human nature. The title of the short story usually points to

what the writer is saying and he may use various figures of speech to emphasize his theme, such

as: symbol, allusion, simile, metaphor, hyperbole, or irony. Some simple examples of common

themes from literature, TV, and film are:

Things are not always as they appear to be

i. Love is blind

ii. Believe in yourself

iii. People are afraid of change

iv. Don't judge a book by its cover

Quick Checklist of Narrative Elements:

The major elements of a narrative are as follows:

1. Setting is the "where" and 'when" of the story or novel.

2. Characters are the "who."

3. Conflict is the "what." (What is the problem?)

4. Plot is the "how." (How is the conflict developed and resolved (also known as the

resolution)?)

5. Theme is the "why." (The author's message and one of the reasons why the author wrote

the story or novel.)

36
HOW TO READ A SHORT STORY

Some strategies to consider…

Ease into the story.

i. Think about the title and author.

ii. Look at the back of the book for any biographical information about the author.

iii. Look at any illustrations and consider their connection to the title.

iv. Read the first page and pause.

v. Consider what you know so far about the characters, setting, conflict, and point of

view.

Get involved in the story.

i. Be an active reader by asking questions about what is happening.

ii. Make predictions about what might happen.

iii. Put yourself in the characters’ shoes.

iv. Form opinion about what is going on.

v. Picture the events and setting in your mind.

vi. Write down your favourite quotations as you read.

vii. Make connections with what you already know.

Write about the story.

i. Make jot notes to focus your thinking while you read.

37
 ii. If possible, annotate a copy of the story to: highlight, underline, circle, connect with

arrows, add questions, definitions, or make comments/notes in the margins.

iii. Underline any unfamiliar vocabulary.

iv. Star important passages that connect thematically.

v. Perhaps draw wed diagrams to keep track of the characters.

vi. Sketch the setting.

Revision Questions

1. Define the term ‘genre’.

2. When did Short Story flourish as a formal art of writing?

3. How is a Short Story different from other narrative forms?

4. What are the key elements of a Short Story?

5. Discuss the scope of the development for a Character in Short Story?

6. Can a Short Story be written without having any Plot? Comment.

7. What role does conflict play in weaving the plot of a Short Story?

8. How far the Theme of a Short Story is different from the Plot?

9. Differentiate between Climax and Anti-climax.

10. What points should be kept in mind while reading a Short Story.

11. What type of character you would like to assume/play if you were the part of a Short

Story?

12. Who is your favourite Short Story Writer?

13. If you were to write a Short Story, what will be your selection of the Theme?

38
SAMPLE OF A SHORT STORY

The Story of the Bad Little Boy

Once there was a bad little boy whose name was Jim - though, if you will notice, you will find

that bad little boys are nearly always called James in your Sunday-school books. It was strange,

but still it was true that this one was called Jim.

He didn't have any sick mother either - a sick mother who was pious and had the consumption,

and would be glad to lie down in the grave and be at rest but for the strong love she bore her boy,

and the anxiety she felt that the world might be harsh and cold towards him when she was gone.

Most bad boys in the Sunday-books are named James, and have sick mothers, who teach them to

say, "Now, I lay me down," etc. and sing them to sleep with sweet, plaintive voices, and then

kiss them good-night, and kneel down by the bedside and weep. But it was different with this

fellow. He was named Jim, and there wasn't anything the matter with his mother - no

consumption, nor anything of that kind. She was rather stout than otherwise, and she was not

pious; moreover, she was not anxious on Jim's account. She said if he were to break his neck it

wouldn't be much loss. She always spanked Jim to sleep, and she never kissed him good-night;

on the contrary, she boxed his ears when she was ready to leave him.

Once this little bad boy stole the key of the pantry, and slipped in there and helped himself to

some jam, and filled up the vessel with tar, so that his mother would never know the difference;

but all at once a terrible feeling didn't come over him, and something didn't seem to whisper to

him, "Is it right to disobey my mother? Isn't it sinful to do this? Where do bad little boys go who

gobble up their good kind mother's jam?" and then he didn't kneel down all alone and promise

39
never to be wicked any more, and rise up with a light, happy heart, and go and tell his mother all

about it, and beg her forgiveness, and be blessed by her with tears of pride and thankfulness in

her eyes. No; that is the way with all other bad boys in the books; but it happened otherwise with

this Jim, strangely enough. He ate that jam, and said it was bully, in his sinful, vulgar way; and

he put in the tar, and said that was bully also, and laughed, and observed "that the old woman

would get up and snort" when she found it out; and when she did find it out, he denied knowing

anything about it, and she whipped him severely, and he did the crying himself. Everything about

this boy was curious - everything turned out differently with him from the way it does to the bad

James in the books.

Once he climbed up in Farmer Acorn's apple-tree to steal apples, and the limb didn't break, and

he didn't fall and break his arm, and get torn by the farmer's great dog, and then languish on a

sick bed for weeks, and repent and become good. Oh! no; he stole as many apples as he wanted

and came down all right; and he was all ready for the dog too, and knocked him endways with a

brick when he came to tear him. It was very strange - nothing like it ever happened in those mild

little books with marbled backs, and with pictures in them of men with swallow-tailed coats and

bell-crowned hats, and pantaloons that are short in the legs, and women with the waists of their

dresses under their arms, and no hoops on. Nothing like it in any of the Sunday-school books.

Once he stole the teacher's pen-knife, and, when he was afraid it would be found out and he

would get whipped, he slipped it into George Wilson's cap - poor Widow Wilson's son, the moral

boy, the good little boy of the village, who always obeyed his mother, and never told an untruth,

and was fond of his lessons, and infatuated with Sunday-school. And when the knife dropped

from the cap, and poor George hung his head and blushed, as if in conscious guilt, and the

grieved teacher charged the theft upon him, and was just in the very act of bringing the switch

40
down upon his trembling shoulders, a white-haired improbable justice of the peace did not

suddenly appear in their midst, and strike an attitude and say, "Spare this noble boy - there stands

the cowering culprit! I was passing the school-door at recess, and unseen myself, I saw the theft

committed!" And then Jim didn't get whaled, and the venerable justice didn't read the tearful

school a homily and take George by the hand and say such a boy deserved to be exalted, and then

tell him to come and make his home with him, and sweep out the office, and make fires, and run

errands, and chop wood, and study law, and help his wife to do household labours, and have all

the balance of the time to play, and get forty cents a month, and be happy. No; it would have

happened that way in the books, but it didn't happen that way to Jim. No meddling old clam of a

justice dropped in to make trouble, and so the model boy George got thrashed, and Jim was glad

of it because, you know, Jim hated moral boys. Jim said he was "down on them milk-sops." Such

was the coarse language of this bad, neglected boy.

But the strangest thing that ever happened to Jim was the time he went boating on Sunday, and

didn't get drowned, and that other time that he got caught out in the storm when he was fishing

on Sunday, and didn't get struck by lightning. Why, you might look, and look, all through the

Sunday-school books from now till next Christmas, and you would never come across anything

like this. Oh no; you would find that all the bad boys who go boating on Sunday invariably get

drowned; and all the bad boys who get caught out in storms when they are fishing on Sunday

infallibly get struck by lightning. Boats with bad boys in them always upset on Sunday, and it

always storms when bad boys go fishing on the Sabbath. How this Jim ever escaped is a mystery

to me.

This Jim bore a charmed life - that must have been the way of it. Nothing could hurt him. He

even gave the elephant in the menagerie a plug of tobacco, and the elephant didn't knock the top

41
of his head off with his trunk. He browsed around the cupboard after essence of peppermint, and

didn't make a mistake and drink aqua fortis. He stole his father's gun and went hunting on the

Sabbath, and didn't shoot three or four of his fingers off. He struck his little sister on the temple

with his fist when he was angry, and she didn't linger in pain through long summer days, and die

with sweet words of forgiveness upon her lips that redoubled the anguish of his breaking heart.

No; she got over it. He ran off and went to sea at last, and didn't come back and find himself sad

and alone in the world, his loved ones sleeping in the quiet churchyard, and the vine-embowered

home of his boyhood tumbled down and gone to decay. Ah! no; he came home as drunk as a

piper, and got into the station-house the first thing.

And he grew up and married, and raised a large family, and brained them all with an axe one

night, and got wealthy by all manner of cheating and rascality; and now he is the infernalist

wickedest scoundrel in his native village, and is universally respected, and belongs to the

Legislature.

So you see there never was a bad James in the Sunday-school books that had such a streak of

luck as this sinful Jim with the charmed life.

COMMENTARY

In the 19th century, it was a common practice to see characters through the mirror of morality

and judge them accordingly. There are many novels written in 19th century where good

characters always get rewarded and bad characters are penalized in the end of the story. Perhaps,

it is a way to teach children and keep check on their morals. Mark Twain deviates from this

practice and writes the story ‘The Story of the Bad Little Boy’ which is often paired with’ The

Story Of Good Little Boy’.

42
It is a deviation from traditional practices, as nothing bad happens to the bad boy. It is a simple

story of a little boy Jim. Like traditional stories, where little boys always have sick mother or

with some ailments, it is different with Jim. His mother is quite healthy and strong. She never has

any serious problem. Jim on the other hand is rascal in the real sense; he uses to do wrongs and

never feels any prick of consciousness while doing wrong acts. Luck and fortunate remains on

his side throughout his life.

It is a very simple story without any twist or complexity. The reader is introduced with two main

characters, i.e., Jim and his mother. There is a third person narrator, who tells story and keeps on

commenting as well. Main focus remains on Jim, his life and treatment with life. The character

of his mother appears for a very little time. No question of right and wrong arises in his mind like

typical story characters. It never happens to him after doing wrong to feel sorry and be ashamed

of his act. Even after beaten up from mother, he does not cry like stereotype stories characters

and ask forgiveness. He is in habit of stealing apples and is never caught. Time and again there is

comment that nothing bad happens with him as it used to be in moral stories. Despite all wrong

acts, he is never caught, goes for boating but is not drowned at all. He even gets married and kills

all his family, later on he becomes rich and enjoys a peaceful life.

The writer uses the technique of comparison and contrast in this short story. In the whole story

comparison and contrast is going on. There is an element of surprise for the reader as nothing

bad happens. The “bad little boy’ is more a commentary than story on the character of bad boy

that is usually portrayed in our fiction. It seems Mark Twain has written this story to show that it

is not necessary that bad people always get punishment and good people get rewards, on the

other hand, in real life situation can be reversed as happens with bad boy, who always gets best

despite his wicked attitude towards people.

43
Mark Twain is quite disgusted with the brutal attitude of people towards life. He has written the

story to give a new lesson; life is and can’t be categorized into sections of good and evil as

happens in fantasy world. In actual life things are different. Wicked can prosper and thrive, while

honest can suffer.

Language is very simple and straight, even theme of the story is portrayed in a simple way. The

story is very easy to understand. The flow of the story remains same from start till end. There are

no twists and turns in the story. The climax of the story comes when the reader comes to know

that despite killing his family, Jim is still living happily ever after. He is actually convinced of

the idea "A lie can travel halfway around the world while the truth is still putting on its shoes."

Activity

1. What is the main idea of the story?

2. How would you relate this story with the fiction you have read so far?

3. Discuss the character of ‘Jim’.

4. Discuss at least two bad boy characters that you have read and also tell how life has

treated them?

5. Do you find this story little weird and different?

6. Express your feelings after reading this story and also relate your real-life experience. Do

you agree such characters exist in real life?

7. Do you think in fiction there should be concept of ‘absolute judgment’ or it should

portray reality?

UNIT 5

THE GENRES OF LITERATURE (POETRY)

44
Introduction

Poetry, like drama and prose fiction, is a work of the imagination. Like the other two genres, it

has its own distinct features, as well as those it shares with the other two. In studying poetry the

students should be made aware of those feature, especially the obvious ones, which we will

throw light upon, shortly. As students, we should bear in mind, though, that one purpose alone

holds poetry, prose and drama together: to educate and entertain the reader through the use of

language.

ELEMENTS OF POETRY

There are primary ones and what one may describe as shared elements with prose and drama.

Among the primary elements are Form or Structure. These include:

The Line

This is the most obvious and distinguishing feature of poetry. Poetry is written in lines. Lines are

recognisably separated from one another on the page and they may be long or short.

The Stanza

The stanza is also an exclusive feature of poetry, like the paragraph in prose writing. Stanzas

tend to hold like-thoughts together, as paragraphs do. Some poems are clearly and visibly

divided into a number of stanzas of two, three, four or more. Some stanzas are of even number

lines. Others are not. There are also one-stanza poems.

Run-On and End-Stopped Lines

45
Earlier we made reference to the line as a primary feature of poetry. We need to note, also, that

in some poems, the lines are heavily punctuated at their ends. These are called end-stopped lines.

End-stopped lines tend to hold the ideas within their lines, but there are poems which are not

punctuated at the ends of their lines, or use punctuation sparingly. Such lines are said to run-on.

Run-on lines suggest the flow or tumbling of ideas from one line to the other.

Rhyme and Rhythm

(a) Rhyme is no longer a very important feature of modern poetry, but is often a poetic

feature. Some poems have two or more lines rhyming consecutively, alternatively, or in

some such combinations at their ends. Others do not use end-rhymes or uses them

sparingly, or have internal rhymes, or combinations of internal and ends-rhymes.

Some of the pleasure in reading a poem and decoding its meaning is helped by rhyme.

(b) Rhythm, on the other hand, is not as basic to poetry as rhyme is. In English, it is the

succession of stressed and unstressed syllables that create rhythm. Unlike prose or drama

(except poetic drama) rhythm in poetry is more pronounced, as lines get broken into feet

(scansion) of different rhythmic types.

METER

A meter is a systematically arranged and measured rhythm in verse such as a rhythm that

continuously repeats a single pattern. Meter also refers to the regular patterns of accented

46
 (stressed) and unaccented (unstressed) syllables in a poetic line. The basic unit of a meter is

called the foot.

There are five (5) basic metrical patterns in English. iambic, trochaic, anapestic, dactylic,

and spondaic.

1. An iambic foot, or metrical unit, consist of an unstressed syllable that is followed by a

stressed one.

2. A troaich foot is an iambic foot in reverse which implies that a stressed syllable is

followed by an unstressed syllable.

3. An anapestic foot consist of three syllables, where two unstressed syllables are followed

by a third syllable that is stressed.

4. A dactylic foot is the reverse of an anapestic foot. It is made up of three syllables where

a stressed syllable is followed by two unstressed syllables. The English or Shakespeare

sonnet consist of three quatraires followed by a couplet.

5. A spondaic foot consist of two consecutive stressed syllables alone that have been

brought for emphasis.

Below is a table of the number of a feet in a line.

Number of Feet Prefix Metrical Term

one mono monometer

47
 two di dimeter

three tri trimeter

four tetra tetrameter

five penta pentameter

six hexa hexameter

seven hepta heptameter

eight octa octameter

The terms may sound intimidating. However, it is useful for the student to know what they stand

for and how rhythm works in poetry.

In teaching the above elements, do not allow terminologies to get in the way. Your knowledge

alone should inform how you teach poetry at this level.

USE OF SOUND DEVICES

Certain sounds devices are used more in poetry than in drama or prose. Those that we should be

familiar with in this work are alliteration, assonance and onomatopoeia.

Alliteration

48
This applies to the repetition of the initial consonant sounds of words in a line or across lines. In

the following beginning line of a words worth poem, the ‘s’ sound has been repeated or

alliterated:

“A slumber did my spirit seal”

Assonance

The term applies to repeating the same vowel sound in words in a line or across lines. For

example, in “The fat cat sat on the mat”,. The ‘a’ sound is repeated, and that illustrates

assonance.

Onomatopoeia

This is an interesting sound device. Some words in English, like buzz, hiss, and clap, echo their

meanings. Poets use onomatopoeia words to imitate or mimic real human or animal activities.

The poems your pupils study contain examples of sounds devices. Help them show why they

help to bring out the meanings of the poems.

USE OF IMAGERY

These are special terms used to indirectly suggest how we relate things in our human experience

to one another. Literature and poetry, in particular, uses many figures of speech. First, however,

this discussion will focus on a few well-known ones.

49
Simile

It is human nature to compare two seemingly unlike things to draw attention to some inherent

similarity. A simile is normally identified using words like ‘as’ or ‘like’ or ‘as … so’, which link

the things compared. A simile is a comparison achieved by indirect reference (A is like B or as

… as Y). For example;

i. The shirt is as white as snow.

ii. He is as fat as an elephant.

Metaphor

A metaphor is an image whereby a comparison is made by a direct reference (a is b). This

imagery technique is particularly common in praise songs and chants in which the artist is so

carried away with admiration of objects of persons that he or she conceives them in exaggerated

terms. Nature and environment, trees, plants, animals, the solar system cosmology are used, and

these elements refer to attributes of human beings. Metaphors usually use the verb to be (am, is,

are).

E.g. He is a pig → that involves comparisons of appearance, morality, childbirth, dirtiness,

gluttonous etc.

Oxymoron

This applies to words with opposite meanings but is placed side by side to create a special

meaning or effect, as in the expression “loud silence” and “bitter-sweet”.

50
Hyperbole

The other word for hyperbole is an exaggeration. Poets use hyperbole to create the impression

that something is beyond description or human comprehension. For example, one can refer to a

large number of people as “a sea or swarm of people”.

Pun

This is also called wordplay. Pun is based on words like “bank” having more than one meaning,

or some words are pronounced the same way but spelt differently. An example of a pun occurs in

the famous poem by George Herbert called “The Pulley”, where there is a pun on the word

“rest.”

Euphemism

This refers to using a word to replace another whose meaning or referent is seen as unpleasant,

for example, in A. A. Amoako’s poem. “Sleep without Wake”. He refers to his mother as

“locked up in your wooden box” when he does not want to use the word “coffin”.

Irony

The commonest type of irony is saying one thing and intending or meaning another. This is

called verbal irony. The other types are situational and dramatic and occur more frequently in

drama and prose.

Personification

Sometimes inanimate things, like flowers, are invested with personality and made to act like

humans. Wordsworth’s poem, daffodils has several examples of personification as the flowers

“dance” and even “toss their heads in a sprightly dance”.

51
The above list is not exhausted. The literature teacher will encounter more, but we have enough

to help us deal with poetry at the Junior High School (JHS). Other useful figures of speech are

metonymy, synecdoche and paradox.

DICTION

The term refers to vocabulary or words used in a poem, play, or story. Some words are simple

(mono syllabic), and others are complex or even pompous, like ‘sad and melancholic’. A poet’s

diction depends on the subject matter and theme. Therefore, in discussing diction, the student

has to observe whether the words used are everyday words or formal and, therefore, more often

written than spoken. Sometimes, a poet uses technical or archaic words (old) and is no longer

every day. Examples are ‘quill’ and ‘parchment’ in L. Darmani’s poem. “The Scribbler’s

Dream”.

SENTENCE CONSTRUCTION

Apart from diction, a poet may use simple, compound or complex sentences, depending on what

and how to say it. Also, the poet’s choice of tense may reveal whether a topic or theme is being

treated as something past or still relevant.

Last but not least is parallel structure, where two or more lines have sentences or phrases

repeated with slight variations. For example, the poem ‘Mama is Sunrise’ has several parallel

lines.

SETTING, MOOD, ATTITUDE

These three terms also apply, in equal measure, to prose and drama. While setting applies to the

place and time of the action or events in a literary work, mood depends on the poet or speaker's

52
diction and tone (pitch of the voice). Indeed, the poet’s attitude influences the poem's mood (or

prevailing feelings), just as tone does.

SUBJECT MATTER AND THEME

These two have been deliberately left to the end, for, like setting and mood, they apply to prose

and drama too. The two are hard to distinguish in some discussions, but they can be separated for

teaching purposes.

Subject Matter

This will apply to the events or actions in the poem. Indeed an examination of the content of a

poem is likely to bring up its subject matter, just as some titles do.

Theme

The theme is the central idea under which the entire poem revolves. Though not all poems have

recognizable and paraphrasable themes, many poems have themes. Furthermore, a poem may

also have multiple themes. It, therefore, means that a poem can be interpreted from many

perspectives.

Conclusion

The present unit dealt with poetry as distinct from other forms of literary works. The unit

focused on poems such as lyric and narrative poems. It looked at the elements of poetry and

concentrated on the tone, structure and rhyming.

Poetry is concentrated, condensed and compressed writing arranged to create a specific

emotional response through its meaning, sound and rhythm. A poem is written in verse, and it

53
relies on meter, rhyme and lines as its formal unit. Therefore, its primary units are lines and

stanzas rather than sentences and paragraphs.

Revision Questions

1. What is poetry?

2. Discuss the tone of a poem and show four main features manifested in a poem.

3. Write briefly about any of the following: diction, imagery, sound.

4. Why does a poet need to pay attention to diction?

5. With illustrative examples, discuss Rhyme.

54
 UNIT 6

TRAGEDY & COMEDY IN DRAMA

Introduction

This unit deals with forms of literary work according to the writer's intention and what he or she

intends to portray to his or her readers, audience and the general public. The unit looks at forms

that relate mostly to drama: comedy, tragedy, tragedy-comedy and satire. Drama is one of the

most important aspects of literary works that focuses on a wide range of emotions and views of

the world. There are two basic categories of drama that impinge on people’s emotions: ' tragedy

and comedy.’

COMEDY

Comedy is a work that focuses on life’s joy and humorous activities. Comedy is a genre of

dramatic literature that deals with the light, the amusing situations or events that treat serious and

profound events in a light, familiar or satirical manner. Comic drama concentrates on the lives

of the ordinary fellows probably because writers want to escape the punishments from the

nobility and those in authority. The medieval meaning of the word comedy was simply a story

with a happy ending. In comedy, serious problems and conflicts are treated and solved in a light-

hearted and playful manner to create laughter.

If we compare comedy with tragedy, we realize that comedy is a lighter form of drama, which

primarily aims to amuse, and for that reason, it ends happily. Since comedy provokes and

55
triggers smiles and laughter, it utilizes wits, creativity, humour, play on words and physical

appearance and costume of the performer or comedian. His or her appearance normally fall short

of the ordinary, such as the wearing of tattered clothing, improper dressing, disproportional

length or size of trousers and shirt, wrong buttons, etc. and all these call for laughter. It could

also be in the form of his or her speech, including mumbling, stuttering, malapropism and

spoonerism, and bragging. Sometimes the speaker intentionally gets stuck in the middle of an

utterance, not knowing what to say. In Akan comedy, the speaker may decide to speak broken

Twi using the accent of some of the northern Ghanaian speakers.

CATEGORIES OF COMEDY

Comedy depends on the authors’ attitudes towards their subjects, handling them, and the

processes involved. We can mention satiric comedy, romantic comedy and tragicomedy.

Satiric Comedy: When an author intends to ridicule, satirical comedy emerges. Satiric comedy

identifies and exposes the weaknesses and shortcomings of humanity. According to Holman

(1980:89), “comedy may be considered to deal with people in their human state, restrained

and often made ridiculous by their limitations, faults, bodily functions and animal nature.”

The behaviour and activities of the characters involved are always exaggerated to make readers

and the audience laugh. To incite laughter in readers and the audience, writers of comedy paint

the characters as being selfish and egoistic. These negative qualities expose their plights and

suffering, making people laugh at them instead of sympathising with them. In addition, comedy

writers employ some sharp descriptive words and cutting phrases that inspire laughter in the

audience.

56
Romantic Comedy: When there is progress from troubles to the triumph of love in a happy

outcome, we produce a romantic comedy. Normal people who are less burdened with social,

political, religious, and economic pressures are more likely to time for romantic activities and

vice versa. Romantic comedy is an outlet to vent up emotions of the depressed and the exploited.

The comedy of intrigue derives from a dominant intention of providing amusement and

excitement with an intricate reversal plot with artificial, contrived situations. While satiric

comedy chastises human behaviour and calls for ways to improve it, romantic comedy directs at

laughter and seeks to entertain the audience rather than teach a lesson.

Another type of comedy is sentimental comedy. This results when the author wants to exploit

potentially serious issues without finding out the real tragic aspects of the subject or examining

its underlying significance. Tragicomedy (or sometimes comi-tragedy) combines tragic and

comedic elements.

ASPECTS OF COMEDY

There are various aspects of comedy, and various literary writers employ various terms. These

are:

1. Comedy of Morals

2. Comedy of Manner

3. Comedy of Situation

4. Comedy of Character

5. Comedy of Intrigue.

These comedies could be either romantic or satiric. We will treat them one after the other.

57
 1. Comedy of Morals

It is a comedy that uses ridicule to correct abuses in a satire. It has a didactic function to draw

attention to morals, piety and social teachings. It aims at the state of the morality of a people or a

class of people. It could focus on the aristocrats, nobility, politicians, administrators,

intellectuals, peasants, youth, or even gender. Such comedies are meant to preach, teach and

bring about a harmonious and peaceful society.

2. Comedy of Manner

This refers to a satire of social convention and those within social groups. This is a witty,

cerebral form of drama that satirises the manner and fashions of a particular social class or set. A

comedy of manners concerns social usage and the ability or inability of certain characters to

meet social standards within the deviations, aberrations and abnormalities of social behaviour.

The characters refer to certain abhorred and deviant character types in society rather than

individualized personalities.

The emphasis is on illicit love, dual, amoral lovers, jealous husbands and wives, armed robbers,

irresponsible personalities, coxcombs, and lazy fellows. Often the governing social standard is

morally trivial but exact. The plot of such comedy, usually concerning an illicit love affair or

similarly scandalous matter, is subordinate to the play’s main atmosphere and commentary on

58
human fables. All these characters put up behaviours and manners that fail to conform to norms

and conventional attitudes and manners of their times' elegant society and culture.

3. Comedy of Situation

It is a comedy in which comic effect depends chiefly upon the involvement of the main

characters in a predicament or ludicrous complex of circumstances. It is a social bound comedy,

and the types of situations make the analysis and interpretation more real and understanding. It

depends on the ingenuity of the plot rather than the characters themselves. There is much

attention on misnomer, abnormal, deviant situations full of social mistakes. Such presentations

make the audience laugh at the characters.

4. Comedy of Character

When ridicule is turned on an individual, the result is the comedy of character. It is a comedy

that emphasises characterisation rather than the plot or lines. It is the reverse of the comedy of

the situation above that emphasizes the ingenuity of the plot. The comedy of character places its

lenses on various characters in society. It could be on the rich, the poor, the rulers and the ruled,

the peasant and the landowners, the urban and the rural dwellers, the congregation and the

priests.

5. Comedy of Intrigue

59
It is a type of comedy in which one or more of the characters manipulate and control the action

to their benefit and become more important than the other characters. A comedy of intrigue is

also referred to as a comedy of situations by some scholars, and in this type, complicated

conspiracies and stratagems dominate the plot. The complex plots and subplots of comedies of

intrigue are often based on the ridiculous and cleverly planned situation with much farcical

humour.

TRAGEDY

The word tragedy has various definitions depending on the type of literary work it finds itself. In

looking at the various definitions of tragedy. Holman stated as follows:

In narrative, tragedy refers to a body of work that recounts the fall of persons of high degree to

lower estates. In poetry and fiction, especially in novels, it refers to the effort to work what is

often called “the tragic sense of life”, that is, the sense that human beings are inevitably doomed

through their failures or even the action of their virtues, or the nature of fate or destiny (Holman

1980:446).

The import of the above is that things move from positive to negative in tragedy, high to low, life

to death, rich to poor, good to bad, etc. These are reverse actions. It depicts the contrastive and

dualistic aspects of life.

Tragedy is the type of drama that deals with serious themes ending in the suffering or death of

one or more principal characters. It is a serious and dignified drama that typically describes the

development of a conflict between the protagonist and a superior force (such as destiny,

circumstances, government, or society) and reaches a sorrowful or disastrous conclusion. By

extension, the term may be applied to other literary forms such as the novel.

60
Language of Tragedy

Traditionally, the language of tragedy has been elevated as befitting great events and noble

characters. It was considered a fit vehicle for the “high style” of literature and rhetoric and was

originally always in verse even when dealing with humbler people in plays. Although tragedy is

more of drama than fiction, its qualities are readily acknowledged in fiction.

Prompted by will or circumstance, fatal, ignorance, or binding obligation, the tragic protagonist

is confronted in the end by a fate that ensures an unhappy outcome. Such fates normally lead him

to condemnation and failure and make some of them commit suicide.

Tragicomedy

Tragicomedy is a type of drama that mixes elements and styles of tragedy and comedy. It is a

literary genre consisting of dramas that combine tragic and comic elements with the tragic

predominating. It is sometimes referred to as comi-tragedy, implying a tragedy with an element

of comedy. It is a play that uses a plot and structure suitable for tragedy but ends happily like a

comedy. Dramatists have sometimes ignored the rigid theoretical distinction made in classical

Greece between the two types. The Renaissance dramatist, particularly in England, used

considerable freedom, including noble and humble characters in the same play. They introduced

comic scenes into tragedy or even paired a tragic plot with a sub-

61
Plot.

Plays that provoke amusement yet end tragically have been common in the western world for

many centuries, and many are currently written for the cinema, radio and television. Some of the

Ghanaian, Nigerian and Akan movies on the current market depict some types of comedies.

Satire

Satire is usually a topical literary composition holding up human or individual vices. It has full

abuses or shortcomings to censure using ridicule, derision, burlesque, irony or other methods.

They are sometimes performed with the intent to bring about improvement. It is a social

commentary and has the desire to reform and discredit wrong behaviour.

Chapman (1996:887) states, “Satire is a literary attack through ridicule, irony, and parody, in

verse or prose, and intended to arouse amused contempt for its target”. Satire is a form of

indirection, it blurs the actual reality and finds ways of talking about it without a face threat, but

in doing all this, the aim is to portray the morality of the situation. It exposes the weaknesses,

vices, corruption and mismanagement in society. It may be directed against an individual – a

public figure, a group, such as authors, an entire institution or a government as a whole, etc. In

satire, the single foe of the society may be spared and passed over, and then the group or society

is attacked.

Satire can occur in many genres and has been practised in English in all periods. It is therefore

found in an indefinite number of literary works. Its forms are varied; it could be anonymous

medieval invectives or verbal insults against social injustice. For example, the popular book by

George Orwell – “Animal Farm” is a satire.

62
Satire can be formal (direct) or indirect. In the formal (direct), the satire voice usually speaks in

the first person, either directly to the reader or to a character in the satire. In an indirect satire, the

satire’s objects of ridicule (butt) are ridiculed not by what is said about them but by what they

say and do (Holman 1980:399)

Conclusion

In this unit, we have dealt with forms of literary words according to the writer’s intention and

what he wants to offer to readers, the audience and the general public. Therefore, the unit

concentrated on forms that relate mostly to drama, comedy, tragedy, comedy, and satire.

Comedy is a work that focuses on life’s joy and humorous activities. Comedy is a genre of

dramatic literature that deals with the light, the amusing, situation or events that treat serious and

profound events in a light, familiar or satirical manner. Various literary writers' aspects of

comedy could be either romantic or satiric. These could be categorised into:

(1) Comedy of Morals

(2) Comedy of Manner

(3) Comedy of Situation

(4) Comedy of Character and

(5) Comedy of Intrigue.

Tragedy is a drama that deals with serious themes that end in the suffering or death of one or

more of the principal characters. It is a serious drama that describes the development of a conflict

between the protagonist and a superior force in which the character is defeated, doomed and

disgraced.

63
Tragicomedy is a type of drama that mixes elements and styles of tragedy and comedy with the

tragic predominating. It is sometimes referred to as comi-tragedy, implying a tragedy with an

element of comedy.

Satire is usually a topical literary composition reflecting human or individual vice. It is full of

abuses or shortcomings to censure using ridicule, irony, or other improvement methods.

However, on the other hand, it is a social commentary and has the desire to reform and discredit

wrong behaviour.

Revision Questions

1. Write on the following: tragedy, comedy, tragicomedy.

2. What is Satire? How do writers use it, and what is its importance?

3. Comment on the various types of Comedy.

i. Comedy of Morals

ii. Comedy of Situation

iii. Comedy of Character

64
 UNIT 7

SCORPION ORCHID (A NOVEL)

By

Lloyd Fernando

About the Author

Lloyd Fernando was born in Kandy, Sri Lanka, in 1926 and migrated to Singapore with his

family in 1938. After obtaining his PhD in Literature in English from Leeds University, he

served as Head of the English Department at the University of Malaya from 1967 to 1978, then

took early retirement at the age of 52 to study Law in London. Fernando was admitted as

Advocate and Solicitor of the High Court of Malaya in 1980 at 54. Fernando is best known in the

literary world for his novel Scorpion Orchid. His other novel, Green Is the Colour, also

explores the issues of identity and cultures in a multi-ethnic society. For his contribution to the

University of Malaya, he was awarded the title of Professor Emeritus in 2005. Fernando passed

away in 2008, leaving behind his wife, Marie, two daughters and four grandchildren.

SUMMARY OF THE NOVEL

Both thematically and structurally, Scorpion Orchid is a brave book in which Lloyd Fernando

has crafted an imaginative, historically well-informed exploration of the meaning of

independence for British Malaya, then including Singapore. His theme is nothing less than the

fragility of a multiracial society as the departure of British colonial rule looms. This colonial

system is archly but aptly dubbed ‘British Realty’, reflecting the congenial framework that

65
colonial ‘law and order’ provided for the entry and exit of British capital into the Malay

peninsula from 1786 onwards. Structurally, Fernando employs the device of archival flashback,

interspersing his narrative of the 1950s with extracts from some of the classic historical

descriptions of the Malay world from earlier centuries, such as the Sejarah Melayu (Malay

Annals) and the Hikayat Abdullah (Story of Abdullah). This device furnishes the reader with

some temporal perspective and a sense of continuity. Physically, Malaysia is a land of great

natural beauty and cultural vitality, capable of inspiring feelings of affection amongst both

inhabitants and visitors, and, as Fernando’s concluding paragraphs attest, even amongst those

who have once left it in despair at its political absurdities. Superbly guided as Scorpion Orchid is

by local Malaysian place and time, there is no doubt that Fernando intends this novel to

contribute to Malaysian writing, as much, or even more than, English literature.

The novel's main characters are four young men, one each from the main ethnic communities.

Sabran is Malay, Guan Kheng is Chinese, Santinathan is Indian, and Peter D’Almeida is

Eurasian. Higher education and its associated privileges bind them. They are former schoolmates

and now undergraduate students at the University of Malaya in Singapore. Within a stratified

colonial society, they exhibit playful and irreverent attitudes toward those they perceive as below

and above.

However, from the first chapter, it becomes clear that even common membership of a student

body is temporary and tenuous and has a shallow basis for lasting association. The family of the

young Indian man, Santinathan, is shown packing up on the eve of their departure from

Singapore back to India, the land of their ancestors. It is intended that Santinathan will join them,

later on, to complete his University studies successfully, but Santinathan’s expulsion from the

University for disruptive and disrespectful behaviour. He must now find labouring work and is

66
reduced to a marginal, desperate existence in the back alleys of Singapore. This separation from

his former University mates matters less, though, as the industrial and political situation around

them descends into anarchy and chaos fomented by radical communism as the famed colonial

“law and order” is about to be withdrawn. This context of chaos means more to the narrative

than some rather thin, if recognizably human, characterization.

In his quest for a Malayan focus in the novel, the author also attempts to create two archetypal,

transcendent characters to which the others can relate, whatever their ethnic affinities. The first is

a holy man, a visionary and soothsayer who goes by the name of Tok Said. Significantly, the

reader never actually encounters Tok Said first-hand, but only by hearsay from out of the mouths

of other characters who claim to have met him. The reader can never be quite sure. The problem

is compounded when each character perceives Tok Said quite differently. To Santinathan, he is a

Malay bomoh. To Guan Kheng, visiting Malacca, he becomes an elderly Eurasian named Senor

Francisco Xavier Entalban. To the Malay, Sabran, Tok Said is a Chinese geomancer. In Tok

Said, the young men see what they want to see, and the truth about this ostensibly consensual

figure proves elusive. The other intentionally integrative personality is the prostitute first

introduced as Sally, who serves, in turn, to accommodate the physical needs of most of the main

characters, again irrespective of ethnicity. However, Sally, too, is an ambiguous character. She is

alternatively called ‘Sally Yu’ or ‘Salmah binte Yub,’ so she could be of Chinese or Malay

descent, a distinction of fundamental significance in Malaysia. Her role in the narrative is basic

and therapeutic, rather than inspirational or challenging. She says, “Malays, Chinese, Indians,

Eurasians, I give them rest.” Like the ethereal Tok Said, Sally or Salmah is not the stuff of which

nations are constructed.

67
So the seeds of division prove deeper than the immediate ties of friendship. Threatened by

militant Chinese mobs in Singapore, Sabran symbolically decides to move north to Malaya.

Threatened by the imposition of Malay as the national and official language, Peter D’Almeida

resolves to leave the colony for a better life in Australia. However, he ends up in wintry England,

ironically soon pining for his equatorial homeland in Malaya. Guan Kheng and Santinathan

remain in solitary circumstances in Singapore, but, influenced by his family's departure,

Santinathan is destined, sooner or later, to return to India.

Plot

The plot entwines four young men of differing ethnic make-up: Santinathan is a Tamil, Guan

Kheng a Chinese, Sabran a Malay, and Peter D'Almeida a Eurasian. The four were former

schoolmates and now attend Singapore University, all in their third year. The story follows them

as they become embroiled with the racial riots in Singapore during the 1950s. A distinctive

feature of Scorpion Orchid lies in fourteen italicized passages of varying length, drawn from

traditional Malayan texts and interwoven into the narrative.

Themes

Scorpion Orchid highlights the racial conflicts in Singapore, which was the cause for its lack of

attention upon release. In a political sense, the novel can be read as a critique on state propagated

multicultural pluralism reflected in the differences in race and culture that eventually separated

four main characters. Akin to this is the exploration of identity that each young men challenge

through, facing questions on their ethnicity and its place in their lives.

Being a text charged with meaning, the use of English to narrate Scorpion Orchid highlights the

fallacy of its neutrality amongst the historical colonial conflict within the storyline. Furthermore,

68
as a foreign language, its use allowed Fernando to put together and later complicate the

relationships of his "in-between culture."

CHARACTERS

1. Santi, a Tamil Indian, Sabran, a Malay, Guan Kheng, a Chinese, and Peter, a Eurasian.

2. Santinathan – Indian, refuses to observe conventions of university life, gets expelled –

ends up as village schoolteacher.

3. Sabran – Malay, involved in politics, gets arrested, and his prospects are somewhat set

back considerably. He reflects on his family in the kampung (village) that has sacrificed

for his education, which exerts a strong emotional pull on him but is in no position to

offer him comfort or advice.

4. Guan Kheng – Chinese, comes from a wealthy family, feels betrayed by the Malays who

suddenly consider him a foreigner. Peter D’Almeida – Eurasian, confused about his

identity, loses faith in ‘new’ Singapore, emigrates to England after being beaten up in a

riot (comes back at the end).

5. Sally – uncertain ethnic background and origin, works at a hawker stall, part-time

prostitute, has an ambiguous relationship with all four men involving sex, money, and

love, although they pay her for sex, she is treated as a friend.

THE TEXT AS A METAPHOR

1. Text is a metaphor for the growth of a new nation.

2. The four young men gain a new awareness of their ethnic identities as they negotiate the

race riots that destroy their complacent sense of camaraderie.

3. The new awareness is central to their transition from adolescence to adult life,

69
4. Represents the Malayan society and the transition between former tolerance and present

assertiveness.

5. Scorpion Orchid generally preserves an allegorical distance between the personal and the

political.

6. The personal and the political develop along with parallel lines and mirror one another,

and when they intersect, they remain clearly defined.

70
 UNIT 8

LITERARY DEVICES OR FIGURES OF SPEECH

Introduction

This unit treats figures of speech as devices that literary artists use in their performance and

writing. The figures treated are

(1). Figures of resemblance or relationships (e.g., simile, metaphor, conceit, parallelism,

personification, metonymy, synecdoche, and euphemism);

(2). Figures of emphasis or understatement (e.g., hyperbole, litotes, rhetorical question,

antithesis, climax, bathos, paradox, oxymoron, and irony;

(3). Figures of sound (e.g., alliteration, repetition, anaphora, and onomatopoeia);

(4). Verbal games and gymnastics (e.g., pun, and anagram) and

(5). Errors (e.g., malapropism, periphrasis, and spoonerism).

Definition

A figure of speech is a sort of comparison based on association, and their meanings must be

inferred or derived from a larger cognitive, cultural, or environmental context.

FIGURES OF RESEMBLANCE OR RELATIONSHIPS

71
Figures of resemblance or relationship are the heart; and the most popular figures of speech; it

includes the following: simile, metaphor, conceit, parallelism, personification, metonymy,

synecdoche, and euphemism.

Simile

A simile compares two things, indicated by some connectives usually like, as, than, or a verb

such as exist; the things compared have to be dissimilar. So, for example, it is no simile to say,

“Her neck is like mine.” It is a literal observation. However, to say, “Her neck is like a pipe.” is

a simile.

Metaphor

A metaphor is a figure of speech that concisely compares two things by saying that one is the

other. A metaphor is like a simile that is condensed. If a comparison is made by omitting the

connective of a simile, the result is a metaphor. A metaphor is a statement that one thing is

something else, which is not in a literal sense. Metaphors usually use the verb to be (am, is, are).

In general, simile refers to only one characteristic that the two things have in common, while a

metaphor is not limited in the number of resemblances it may indicate. E.g.

He eats like a pig. → to compare a man to an animal in one respect; eating habits (simile).

He is a pig. → involves comparisons of appearance, morality, childbirth, dirtiness,

gluttonous (metaphor).

Metonymy

It is a figure of speech that designates something by the name of something associated with it.

Metonymy is closely related to and sometimes hard to distinguish from metaphor. In metonymy,

72
the name of a thing is substituted for that of another closely associated with it. E.g., the Jubilee

House decided, and it means the President of the USA. Metonymy has sometimes been seen as a

synecdoche and sometimes as containing a synecdoche.

Synecdoche

Synecdoche is a kind of metonymy, where the name of a part of a thing is used to stand for the

whole thing or vice versa (whole for the part). In order to use synecdoche very well and make it

clear, a good synecdoche must be based on an important part of the whole. Again the part

selected to stand for the whole must be most directly associated. E.g., She lent a hand → she

lent her entire presence. In this instance, it is generally agreed that the hand is used in

performing a lot of things and activities.

Personification

Personification is a figure of speech in which a thing, an animal, or an abstract term is made

human. Personification endows animals, ideas, abstractions, and inanimate objects with human

attributes, forms, characters, sensibilities, and emotions. In this figure of speech, the literary

artists cleverly make the non-humans behave and act like human beings by using certain verbs,

actions, adjectives, nouns, and sometimes pronouns.

Euphemism

Speakers of many languages try as much as possible to avoid mentioning taboo words and to

talk about them, using euphemism as the major taboo avoidance technique. These are

73
expressions that a speaker uses to avoid literal references. Euphemism normally has some

semantic relationships with the taboo words they replace.

FIGURES OF EMPHASIS OR UNDERSTATEMENT

Figures of emphasis or understatement include the following, e.g., hyperbole, paradox,

oxymoron, antithesis, chiasmus, irony, climax, bathos. Some of these figures hint at the contrast.

Hyperbole

It is a rhetorical term for exaggeration or overstatement, usually deliberate and not meant to be

taken too literally. Hyperbole is common in lover poetry. It is a figure of speech that is an

intentional exaggeration for emphasis or comic effect. Hyperbole is a means of emphasizing a

point with a statement containing exaggeration. We do not speak the literal truth in hyperbole but

use a figure of speech called overstatement (or hyperbole). Overstatement can be used for

humorous purposes. Examples are:

He is as fat as an elephant.

The ant pulled the oak tree.

She is as thin as a needle.

Paradox

A paradox is a statement that, at first, looks self-contradictory but, on reflection, makes more

sense. Some paradoxical statements, however, are much more than play words. It is a term

74
rhetorical for a situation or statement that seems self-contradictory and even absurd but may

contain insight into life, e.g., “The child is the father of the man.”

Oxymoron

when a paradox is compressed into two words, as in “loud silence,” lonely crowd, or living

death, it is called an oxymoron. Oxymoron is a word or group of self-contradicting words like a

bitter sweet or plastic glass. Oxymoron is similar to such other devices as paradox and antithesis.

Antithesis

In rhetorical, antithesis is a construction in which words, phrases, clauses, sentences, or ideas are

opposed but balanced, e.g., for many are called, but few are chosen, to err is human, to

forgive, is divine, man proposes, God disposes. Technically, the first part of such constructions

is the thesis – (for many are called), the second is the antithesis (but few are chosen).

In antithesis, apart from the opposition in idea, two parts of the antithesis should have the same

grammatical structure. In our last example, both “man” and “God” are nouns, while “proposes”

and “disposes of” are verbs.

Irony

In rhetoric, irony refers to words with an implication opposite their usual meaning. Verbal irony

is a figure of speech in which the actual intent is expressed in words that carry opposite

meanings. It is the use of words to express something other than the real concepts and especially

opposite of the literal meaning (as when expressions of praise are used where blame is meant).

Verbal irony arises from an awareness of the contrast between what is and what ought to be,

expressed in controlled expressions.

75
Bathos

A bathos is a sudden change in writing or speech from deeply moving or important to what is

foolish or trivial; anti-climax. It could also be a sudden change from something beautiful, moral,

serious to something nasty, immoral, and ordinary. Bathos may also result from an

inappropriately dignified treatment of the commonplace. It uses elevated language and imagery

to describe the trivial subject matter or greatly exaggerated speech full of emotions provoked by

genuine suffering. It can be seen as an unintentional anti-climax. It has been much exploited in

literature for humour and satire. If a novel, a play, or a film intended to make readers or

spectators weep, succeeds only in making them laugh, the result is bathos. E.g., a judge turning

into a comedian.

FIGURES OF SOUND

Figures of sound are those that relate to the sound patterns employed by the author or artists to

touch the emotions of the reader or audience. They include alliteration, assonance, repetition,

anaphora, epistrophe, and ideophone (onomatopoeia).

Alliteration

Alliteration is the repetition of consonants at the beginning of words or syllables. In poetry and

rhyme, it is the repetition of certain sounds, thereby emphasizing them and helping to unify the

poem. This may enhance the effect of the repeated sounds such as pack and pick bag and

baggage; Peter Piper picked a peck of pickled pepper, the mad man maimed the monster, etc.

Assonance

76
It is the resemblance of sound in words or syllables. It is the relative close juxtaposition of

similar vowel sounds. It is sometimes called vowel rhyme. E.g., cough, drop, quite like pike.

When words rhyme, their final accented syllables sound alike. Assonance is the most important

device used to determine rhyming schemes in poetry. E.g., Eric Egya Esuon eats European

eggs every Easter.

Anaphora

The word anaphora is from Greek “anaphora,” meaning “the act of carrying back.” According

to Ryan (1992:71), “an anaphora is defined as beginning phrases, clauses or sentences with the

same or very similar words.” In literature, it refers to the repetition of a word or words at the

beginning of two or more successive clauses or verses, especially for rhetorical or poetic effect.

Onomatopoeia/ Ideophone

Ideophones are words whose ideas and meanings are found in sounds hence idea-in-phone.

Ideophones abound in African languages. This is because the sense or meaning of the word can

be easily inferred from the sound. This is a normal feature of poetry where a line of a verse can

express characteristics of the thing being portrayed.

i. He banged the door bang.

ii. The ducks quacked and quacked.

iii. There was the flapping of the wings of birds

iv. Keys were grating in locks.

v. I guzzled the soup due to hunger and thirst.

vi. The rooster is called cock-a-doodle-do.

vii. I could hear the cracking of sticks.

77
viii. Hens were clucking.

VERBAL GAMES AND GYMNASTICS

Verbal games and gymnastics are expressions created to make the audience enjoy, including

humour, pun, anagram, and antigram.

Humour

Humour is used as a disposition of the fun often realized in the enjoyments of anecdotes, jokes,

puns, repartee, riddles, wisecracks, and witticisms. Humour in language is culture-dependent.

The joke usually presupposes a social bond. The joker and audience draw freely on the stock of

common knowledge involving a shared history, a familiar pattern of daily life, topical events,

and popular assumptions and attitudes. When humour is considered in its social setting, it seems

clear that many jokes derive their force from the joker’s readiness to challenge authority and

institutional constraints as in courtroom humour. Comedians employ humour and jokers as their

major tools to create fun.

Pun (paronomasia)

Some scholars refer to pun as paronomasia. It is a figure of speech that plays on words. It is a

game where the objects for the game are words. A pun is a humorous use of a word in such a

way as to suggest different meanings or applications. In poetry, a pun may be amusing, or it may

be serious.

FIGURES OF ERRORS

78
Figures of errors are erroneous expressions but have been made so and accepted like that for

poetic reasons. They include the following: malapropism, spoonerism, and periphrasis.

Malapropism

Malapropism is a verbal blunder in which one word is replaced by another similar sound but

different in meaning. It is an error in which a similar sounding word is substituted for the

intended one, a characteristic of the fictional Mrs Malaprop. The term derives from Richard

Brinsley Sheridan’s character Mrs Malaprop, in his play The Rivals (1775). Her name is taken

from malapropos (French: “inappropriate”). Errors like pineapple for pinnacle. He is the very

pineapple of politeness.

Spoonerism

This verbal error involves the transposition of the initial sounds of words, as in ket of seas (set of

keys) for humorous effect. The eponymous Spooner was known to make errors of this type, and

several utterances are quoted as original spoonerism.

In real life, transposed sounds often have some phonetic resemblance to one another, as in snow

and sneet (snow and sleet). They can affect vowels and even larger items such as syllables and

words, to bridge the gap → to gap the bridge, food in her mouth → , mouth in her food, Kofi

hissed the liberator bus instead of Kofi missed the literature course. Such errors provide

evidence of how speech is planned and produced.

Periphrasis/Circumlocution

79
Periphrasis is an indirect and abstract roundabout method of stating ideas and statements. It

means talking around or expressing something in a roundabout way. It uses a longer phrasing

instead of a possible shorter form of expression or a roundabout or indirect way of speaking. In

literature, it uses more rather than fewer words, especially to talk about something in an indirect

and circuitous way. A similar to the above use of tautology, where there is an overuse of words.

Conclusion

In this unit, we have treated figures of speech as devices literary artists use in their performance

and writing. The figures of speech treated are:

1. There are figures of resemblance or relationships (e.g., simile, metaphor, conceit,

parallelism, personification, metonymy, synecdoche, and euphemism).

2. Figures of emphasis or understatement (e.g., hyperbole, litotes, rhetorical question,

antithesis, climax, bathos, paradox, oxymoron, and irony).

3. Figures of sound (e.g., alliteration, repetition, anaphora, and onomatopoeia).

4. Verbal games and gymnastics (e.g., pun and anagram).

5. Figures of errors (e.g., malapropism, periphrasis, and spoonerism).

We have seen that the figures use of these figures of speech and styles identifies and

distinguishes one literary artist from another. The artists use these styles as dress of thoughts and

distinguish literary works from normal daily language. We can also state that the perfect

combination of some of these literary devices into a piece of work shows how skilful and

competent an artist is.

Revision Questions

1. Discuss four main types of figures of resemblance or relationships.

80
2. What are figures of emphasis and understatement? Then, discuss any three (3) of them

with suitable examples.

3. Discuss the following: hyperbole, antithesis, paradox, oxymoron, and irony.

4. Discuss three verbal games and gymnastics in literature.

81
 REFERENCES

Agyekum, Kofi (2007). Introduction to Literature 2nd Edition Accra, Legon. Media Design.

Chapman, Raymond (1992). ‘Satire.’ In The Oxford Companion to the English Language.

Oxford: Oxford University Press, pp.887.

Holman, C.H. and Harmon, W. (1986). A Handbook to Literature. Fifth edition. New York:

Macmillan Publishers.

Holman, C.H. (1980). A Handbook to Literature. 4th edition. Indianapolis: Bobbs-Merrill

Educational Publishers.

Ryan, Halford (1992). Classical Communication for the Contemporary Communicator.

Mountview California: Mayfield Publishing Company.

82