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How To Analyze Short Stories
How To Analyze Short Stories
I. Introduction
This paper will teach one how to analyze short stories in all aspects. As a teacher, one must be
well grounded on the different literary theories and conventions, so as to deliver well the lessons for the
students. As for the students, this will be helpful in giving sincere interpretations and analysis of a given
story by your teacher.
One must expect that the interpretations being made may vary from one person to
another depending on the theory being used. This would mean that there no wrong
or exact interpretations of the given text.
PS. The context and processes of literature lie on the depth and breadth of the literary
piece. Literature being a mirror of life demands that we look at all facets, therefore
seeing all right angles. Teachers must understand what is expected as an experience
in a literary class. Stop teaching it, help students experience it.
Types:
First person - used when the main character is telling the story.
This is the kind that uses the "I" narrator. As a reader, you can
only experience the story through this person's eyes. So you
won't know anything about the people or events that this
character hasn't personally experienced.
Parts of a Plot:
Types of Plot:
Types of Conflicts:
Internal:
Man vs. Self
Interpersonal:
Man vs. Man
Man vs. Nature
Man vs. Society
Man vs. Technology
Man vs. Fate
Man vs. God/Supernatural
1. Take note of author’s background and try to find any strain of it present in
the text written.
e.g. Edgar Allan Poe’s “The Cask of Amontillado” tale is all about wines
and liquors and where characters are gothic characters. If we further delve
into the life of Edgar Allan Poe, we will find that he is an infamous drunkard
when he was still alive and died because of excessive drunkenness. This
would somehow explain that the text shows how prolific the author is when
it comes to wines and how it is evident in the text itself.
2. Look at the historical environment of the time and put it side by side with the
story to know why certain events in the story happens or how and why
the characters behave like that.
e.g. Jose Rizal’s “Noli Me Tangere” and “El Filibusterismo” were written
during the Spanish Era. Notice how the characters would speak
and behave? Notice how easily we can connect the ideas of
freedom in the text? That is because, during this time, these are
what our forefathers, Rizal, to be exact, clamors for.
D. Using INTERTEXTUALITY (Usually connected to Postmodernism theory)
o means the complex interrelationship between a text and other texts taken as
basic to the creation or interpretation of the text.
e.g Coraline, Alice in Wonderland, The Lion, The Witch, and the Wardrobe, Harry
Potter: What do they have in common? The main characters are being
transported from the real world to the “fantasy” world through a “door” as they
embark on a new adventure.