Understand the basic elements of literature for better answers

15 Oct, 2017 - 02:10 0 Views

The Sunday News

Charles Dube

FOR learners to do well in literature they need to understand the basics, like what is the title of the story or book, and who is the author of the book? Consider the setting, where does the story take place? In what year or period does the story take place? It is a must for learners to identify characters.

Find out who the main characters are in the story and try to understand what kind of people they are and what part each of them play in the story.

Learners could go on and find out which characters they find interesting, and which ones they like and dislike, and why? Correct answering of the questions demonstrates clear understanding of the text. All these as stated previously, give learners clear directions to proper analysis of the set texts.

The next stage is identification of themes. The theme is the main idea of the story. Note that there are many definitions of themes, all meant to help learners understand what exactly it is.

Other aspects of literature learners need to understand include the plot. This is what actually happens in the story. You get to know the plot by reading the whole story. The plot reveals what the main action is. Other questions answered in the plot are: What are the major events in the story? Which parts of the story are the most exciting and moving and why? Plot is defined as the sequence of actions and events in a literary work.

Most plots centre on a conflict which the characters struggle to resolve. Plots usually follow a specific pattern having five stages: exposition, rising action, climax, falling action, and resolution. Exposition is the part of a plot that provides background information and introduces the story’s setting; its conflict, and often its main character or characters. The exposition usually occurs at the beginning of a literary work.

When analysing literary works learners come across terms like problems (conflicts). What problems or difficulties do the major characters face in the story? Find out how the characters try to solve those problems? Does the writer try to teach you anything about life in the story? Has the learner learnt any lessons from it? Try to determine the mood of the story? Is it for instance, funny, sad, serious or frightening?

What are the learners’ personal responses to the text? Did you enjoy/like the story? Give reasons for each response. Why or why not? Questions to answer: What do you remember most about the story? Did the story change your ideas or views about anything? This clearly shows that literature texts are thought provoking and help learners view issues from different perspectives. Reading through the story learners should also be wary of literary techniques used in the text.

What literary techniques does the author use to make the story interesting? Does she or he use suspense, humour, irony, flashback, similes or foreshadowing? Irony is the contrast between what is expected and what actually exists or happens. Learners should always bear in mind that it is not enough just to list literary techniques used by the author, but, should answer the following question: What effect does the use of these have on the text?

Get more information on parts of speech. Taking things for granted has been the greatest undoing for many learners when it comes to sentence construction. Poorly constructed sentences lead to weak essays and compositions. For the benefit of learners who might have missed earlier discussions on parts of speech we go back a bit and consider some classes of nouns. A noun is a word that names a person, place, thing or idea.

Examples: Persons — Charles, child, teacher. Places — Bulawayo, lake, classroom, farm. Things — book, umbrella, radio, bus. Ideas — love, anger, freedom.

Nouns may be classified in many ways. This is the part we never considered the last time we discussed nouns. There are common nouns. Remember these are general names such as pen, ruler, cow, house, and river. Proper nouns: specific names such as Jameson, Victoria Falls, State House. Proper nouns are always capitalised. Concrete noun — something that can be seen, heard, smelled, touched, or tasted, such as forest, mango, thunder, odour, cloth.

Abstract noun — Something that cannot be recognised through the senses such as pity, truth, ability, love. Compound noun: A noun made of two or more words. It may be written as one word, as two words, or with a hyphen such as football, high school, and great-grandfather. Collective noun — A noun that names a group of people or things, such as audience, herd, team, army, troop, fleet, litter, pack.

We have dwelt at length on using pronouns previously. Remember a pronoun is a word that replaces a noun or another pronoun. The noun or pronoun that a noun replaces is called the antecedent of the pronoun. Example: Janet walked elegantly as she went to collect her prize. The pronoun she refers to the noun Janet. Janet is the antecedent of she. There are many types of pronouns. The following are classes of pronouns:

Personal pronouns: I, you, she, he, we, they, me, her, him, us, them, my, mine, your, yours, hers, his, its, our, ours, your, yours, their, theirs. Reflexive and Intensive pronouns: myself, yourself, himself, herself, itself, ourselves, and yourselves. Demonstrative pronouns: this, that, these, those. Interrogative pronouns — who, whose, whom, which, what. Relative pronouns: who, whose, whom, which, what, that.

Indefinite pronouns: all, another, any, anybody, anyone, anything, both, each, either, everybody, everyone, everything, few, many, more, most, much, neither, nobody, none, no one, nothing, one, other, several, some, somebody, someone, something, such. All the examples of nouns and pronouns given here make no sense on their own. They only come to life when used properly in sentences. Well-constructed sentences lead to excellent work.

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