{"id":45,"date":"2018-05-28T11:27:08","date_gmt":"2018-05-28T11:27:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/courses.lumenlearning.com\/sunycorning1020elec201819\/?post_type=chapter&#038;p=45"},"modified":"2018-06-06T11:00:37","modified_gmt":"2018-06-06T11:00:37","slug":"literature-fiction","status":"publish","type":"chapter","link":"https:\/\/courses.lumenlearning.com\/sunycorning1020elec201819\/chapter\/literature-fiction\/","title":{"raw":"Literature (Fiction)","rendered":"Literature (Fiction)"},"content":{"raw":"<div class=\"page-header\">\r\n<h1>Literature (Fiction)<\/h1>\r\n<\/div>\r\n<h2>Demystifying the process<\/h2>\r\nWriting an analysis of a piece of fiction can be a mystifying process. First, literary analyses (or papers that offer an interpretation of a story) rely on the assumption that stories must mean something. How does a story mean something? Isn\u2019t a story just an arrangement of characters and events? And if the author wanted to convey a meaning, wouldn\u2019t he or she be much better off writing an essay just telling us what he or she meant?\r\n\r\nIt\u2019s pretty easy to see how at least some stories convey clear meanings or morals. Just think about a parable like the prodigal son or a nursery tale about \u201ccrying wolf.\u201d Stories like these are reduced down to the bare elements, giving us just enough detail to lead us to their main points, and because they are relatively easy to understand and tend to stick in our memories, they\u2019re often used in some kinds of education.\r\n\r\nBut if the meanings were always as clear as they are in parables, who would really need to write a paper analyzing them? Interpretations of fiction would not be interesting if the meanings of the stories were clear to everyone who reads them. Thankfully (or perhaps regrettably, depending on your perspective) the stories we\u2019re asked to interpret in our classes are a good bit more complicated than most parables. They use characters, settings, and actions to illustrate issues that have no easy resolution. They show different sides of a problem, and they can raise new questions. In short, the stories we read in class have meanings that are arguable and complicated, and it\u2019s our job to sort them out.\r\n\r\nIt might seem that the stories do have specific meanings, and the instructor has already decided what those meanings are. Not true. Instructors can be pretty dazzling (or mystifying) with their interpretations, but that\u2019s because they have a lot of practice with stories and have developed a sense of the kinds of things to look for. Even so, the most well-informed professor rarely arrives at conclusions that someone else wouldn\u2019t disagree with. In fact, most professors are aware that their interpretations are debatable and actually love a good argument. But let\u2019s not go to the other extreme. To say that there is no one answer is not to say that anything we decide to say about a novel or short story is valid, interesting, or valuable. Interpretations of fiction are often opinions, but not all opinions are equal.\r\n\r\nSo what makes a valid and interesting opinion?\u00a0<strong>A good interpretation of fiction will:<\/strong>\r\n<ul>\r\n \t<li>avoid the obvious (in other words, it won\u2019t argue a conclusion that most readers could reach on their own from a general knowledge of the story)<\/li>\r\n \t<li>support its main points with strong evidence from the story<\/li>\r\n \t<li>use careful reasoning to explain how that evidence relates to the main points of the interpretation.<\/li>\r\n<\/ul>\r\nThe following steps are intended as a guide through the difficult process of writing an interpretive paper that meets these criteria. Writing tends to be a highly individual task, so adapt these suggestions to fit your own habits and inclinations.\r\n<h2>Writing a paper on fiction in 9 steps<\/h2>\r\n<h3>1. Become familiar with the text<\/h3>\r\nThere\u2019s no substitute for a good general knowledge of your story. A good paper inevitably begins with the writer having a solid understanding of the work that he or she interprets. Being able to have the whole book, short story, or play in your head\u2014at least in a general way\u2014when you begin thinking through ideas will be a great help and will actually allow you to write the paper more quickly in the long run. It\u2019s even a good idea to spend some time just thinking about the story. Flip back through the book and consider what interests you about this piece of writing\u2014what seemed strange, new, or important?\r\n<h3>2. Explore potential topics<\/h3>\r\nPerhaps your instructor has given you a list of topics to choose, or perhaps you have been asked to create your own. Either way, you\u2019ll need to generate ideas to use in the paper\u2014even with an assigned topic, you\u2019ll have to develop your own interpretation. Let\u2019s assume for now that you are choosing your own topic.\r\n\r\nAfter reading your story, a topic may just jump out at you, or you may have recognized a pattern or identified a problem that you\u2019d like to think about in more detail. What is a pattern or a problem?\r\n\r\nA pattern can be the recurrence of certain kinds of imagery or events. Usually, repetition of particular aspects of a story (similar events in the plot, similar descriptions, even repetition of particular words) tends to render those elements more conspicuous. Let\u2019s say I\u2019m writing a paper on Mary Shelley\u2019s novel Frankenstein. In the course of reading that book, I keep noticing the author\u2019s use of biblical imagery: Victor Frankenstein anticipates that \u201ca new species would bless me as its creator and source\u201d (52) while the monster is not sure whether to consider himself as an Adam or a Satan. These details might help me interpret the way characters think about themselves and about each other, as well as allow me to infer what the author might have wanted her reader to think by using the Bible as a frame of reference. On another subject, I also notice that the book repeatedly refers to types of education. The story mentions books that its characters read and the different contexts in which learning takes place.\r\n\r\nA problem, on the other hand, is something in the story that bugs you or that doesn\u2019t seem to add up. A character might act in some way that\u2019s unaccountable, a narrator may leave out what we think is important information (or may focus on something that seems trivial), or a narrator or character may offer an explanation that doesn\u2019t seem to make sense to us. Not all problems lead in interesting directions, but some definitely do and even seem to be important parts of the story. In Frankenstein, Victor works day and night to achieve his goal of bringing life to the dead, but once he realizes his goal, he is immediately repulsed by his creation and runs away. Why? Is there something wrong with his creation, something wrong with his goal in the first place, or something wrong with Victor himself? The book doesn\u2019t give us a clear answer but seems to invite us to interpret this problem.\r\n\r\nIf nothing immediately strikes you as interesting or no patterns or problems jump out at you, don\u2019t worry. Just start making a list of whatever you remember from your reading, regardless of how insignificant it may seem to you now. Consider a character\u2019s peculiar behavior or comments, the unusual way the narrator describes an event, or the author\u2019s placement of an action in an odd context. (Step 5 will cover some further elements of fiction that you might find useful at this stage as well.)\r\n\r\nThere\u2019s a good chance that some of these intriguing moments and oddities will relate to other points in the story, eventually revealing some kind of pattern and giving you potential topics for your paper. Also keep in mind that if you found something peculiar in the story you\u2019re writing about, chances are good that other people will have been perplexed by these moments in the story as well and will be interested to see how you make sense of it all. It\u2019s even a good idea to test your ideas out on a friend, a classmate, or an instructor since talking about your ideas will help you develop them and push them beyond obvious interpretations of the story. And it\u2019s only by pushing those ideas that you can write a paper that raises interesting issues or problems and that offers creative interpretations related to those issues.\r\n<h3>3. Select a topic with a lot of evidence<\/h3>\r\nIf you\u2019re selecting from a number of possible topics, narrow down your list by identifying how much evidence or how many specific details you could use to investigate each potential issue. Do this step just off the top of your head. Keep in mind that persuasive papers rely on ample evidence and that having a lot of details to choose from can also make your paper easier to write.\r\n\r\nIt might be helpful at this point to jot down all the events or elements of the story that have some bearing on the two or three topics that seem most promising. This can give you a more visual sense of how much evidence you will have to work with on each potential topic. It\u2019s during this activity that having a good knowledge of your story will come in handy and save you a lot of time. Don\u2019t launch into a topic without considering all the options first because you may end up with a topic that seemed promising initially but that only leads to a dead end.\r\n<h3>4. Write out a working thesis<\/h3>\r\nBased on the evidence that relates to your topic\u2014and what you anticipate you might say about those pieces of evidence\u2014come up with a working thesis. Don\u2019t spend a lot of time composing this statement at this stage since it will probably change (and a changing thesis statement is a good sign that you\u2019re starting to say more interesting and complex things on your subject). At this point in my Frankenstein project, I\u2019ve become interested in ideas on education that seem to appear pretty regularly, and I have a general sense that aspects of Victor\u2019s education lead to tragedy. Without considering things too deeply, I\u2019ll just write something like \u201cVictor Frankenstein\u2019s tragic ambition was fueled by a faulty education.\u201d\r\n<h3>5. Make an extended list of evidence<\/h3>\r\nOnce you have a working topic in mind, skim back over the story and make a more comprehensive list of the details that relate to your point. For my paper about education in Frankenstein, I\u2019ll want to take notes on what Victor Frankenstein reads at home, where he goes to school and why, what he studies at school, what others think about those studies, etc. And even though I\u2019m primarily interested in Victor\u2019s education, at this stage in the writing, I\u2019m also interested in moments of education in the novel that don\u2019t directly involve this character. These other examples might provide a context or some useful contrasts that could illuminate my evidence relating to Victor. With this goal in mind, I\u2019ll also take notes on how the monster educates himself, what he reads, and what he learns from those he watches. As you make your notes keep track of page numbers so you can quickly find the passages in your book again and so you can easily document quoted passages when you write without having to fish back through the book.\r\n\r\nAt this point, you want to include anything, anything, that might be useful, and you also want to avoid the temptation to arrive at definite conclusions about your topic. Remember that one of the qualities that makes for a good interpretation is that it avoids the obvious. You want to develop complex ideas, and the best way to do that is to keep your ideas flexible until you\u2019ve considered the evidence carefully. A good gauge of complexity is whether you feel you understand more about your topic than you did when you began (and even just reaching a higher state of confusion is a good indicator that you\u2019re treating your topic in a complex way).\r\n\r\nWhen you jot down ideas, you can focus on the observations from the narrator or things that certain characters say or do. These elements are certainly important. It might help you come up with more evidence if you also take into account some of the broader components that go into making fiction, things like plot, point of view, character, setting, and symbols.\r\n\r\nPlot is the string of events that go into the narrative. Think of this as the \u201cwho did what to whom\u201d part of the story. Plots can be significant in themselves since chances are pretty good that some action in the story will relate to your main idea. For my paper on education in Frankenstein, I\u2019m interested in Victor\u2019s going to the University of Ingolstadt to realize his father\u2019s wish that Victor attend school where he could learn about a another culture. Plots can also allow you to make connections between the story you\u2019re interpreting and some other stories, and those connections might be useful in your interpretation. For example, the plot of Frankenstein, which involves a man who desires to bring life to the dead and creates a monster in the process, bears some similarity to the ancient Greek story of Icarus who flew too close to the sun on his wax wings. Both tell the story of a character who reaches too ambitiously after knowledge and suffers dire consequences.\r\n\r\nYour plot could also have similarities to whole groups of other stories, all having conventional or easily recognizable plots. These types of stories are often called genres. Some popular genres include the gothic, the romance, the detective story, the bildungsroman (this is just a German term for a novel that is centered around the development of its main characters), and the novel of manners (a novel that focuses on the behavior and foibles of a particular class or social group). These categories are often helpful in characterizing a piece of writing, but this approach has its limitations. Many novels don\u2019t fit nicely into one genre, and others seem to borrow a bit from a variety of different categories. For example, given my working thesis on education, I am more interested in Victor\u2019s development than in relating Frankenstein to the gothic genre, so I might decide to treat the novel as a bildungsroman.\r\n\r\nAnd just to complicate matters that much more, genre can sometimes take into account not only the type of plot but the form the novelist uses to convey that plot. A story might be told in a series of letters (this is called an epistolary form), in a sequence of journal entries, or in a combination of forms (Frankenstein is actually told as a journal included within a letter).\r\n\r\nThese matters of form also introduce questions of point of view, that is, who is telling the story and what do they or don\u2019t they know. Is the tale told by an omniscient or all-knowing narrator who doesn\u2019t interact in the events, or is it presented by one of the characters within the story? Can the reader trust that person to give an objective account, or does that narrator color the story with his or her own biases and interests?\r\n\r\nCharacter refers to the qualities assigned to the individual figures in the plot. Consider why the author assigns certain qualities to a character or characters and how any such qualities might relate to your topic. For example, a discussion of Victor Frankenstein\u2019s education might take into account aspects of his character that appear to be developed (or underdeveloped) by the particular kind of education he undertakes. Victor tends to be ambitious, even compulsive about his studies, and I might be able to argue that his tendency to be extravagant leads him to devote his own education to writers who asserted grand, if questionable, conclusions.\r\n\r\nSetting is the environment in which all of the actions take place. What is the time period, the location, the time of day, the season, the weather, the type of room or building? What is the general mood, and who is present? All of these elements can reflect on the story\u2019s events, and though the setting of a story tends to be less conspicuous than plot and character, setting still colors everything that\u2019s said and done within its context. If Victor Frankenstein does all of his experiments in \u201ca solitary chamber, or rather a cell, at the top of the house, and separated from all the other apartments by a staircase\u201d (53) we might conclude that there is something anti-social, isolated, and stale, maybe even unnatural about his project and his way of learning.\r\n\r\nObviously, if you consider all of these elements, you\u2019ll probably have too much evidence to fit effectively into one paper. Your goal is merely to consider each of these aspects of fiction and include only those that are most relevant to your topic and most interesting to your reader. A good interpretive paper does not need to cover all elements of the story\u2014plot, genre, narrative form, character, and setting. In fact, a paper that did try to say something about all of these elements would be unfocused. You might find that most of your topic could be supported by a consideration of character alone. That\u2019s fine. For my Frankenstein paper, I\u2019m finding that my evidence largely has to do with the setting, evidence that could lead to some interesting conclusions that my reader probably hasn\u2019t recognized on his or her own.\r\n<h3>6. Select your evidence<\/h3>\r\nOnce you\u2019ve made your expanded list of evidence, decide which supporting details are the strongest. First, select the facts which bear the closest relation to your thesis statement. Second, choose the pieces of evidence you\u2019ll be able to say the most about. Readers tend to be more dazzled with your interpretations of evidence than with a lot of quotes from the book. It would be useful to refer to Victor Frankenstein\u2019s youthful reading in alchemy, but my reader will be more impressed by some analysis of how the writings of the alchemists\u2014who pursued magical principles of chemistry and physics\u2014reflect the ambition of his own goals. Select the details that will allow you to show off your own reasoning skills and allow you to help the reader see the story in a way he or she may not have seen it before.\r\n<h3>7. Refine your thesis<\/h3>\r\nNow it\u2019s time to go back to your working thesis and refine it so that it reflects your new understanding of your topic. This step and the previous step (selecting evidence) are actually best done at the same time, since selecting your evidence and defining the focus of your paper depend upon each other. Don\u2019t forget to consider the scope of your project: how long is the paper supposed to be, and what can you reasonably cover in a paper of that length? In rethinking the issue of education in Frankenstein, I realize that I can narrow my topic in a number of ways: I could focus on education and culture (Victor\u2019s education abroad), education in the sciences as opposed to the humanities (the monster reads Milton, Goethe, and Plutarch), or differences in learning environments (e.g. independent study, university study, family reading). Since I think I found some interesting evidence in the settings that I can interpret in a way that will get my reader\u2019s attention, I\u2019ll take this last option and refine my working thesis about Victor\u2019s faulty education to something like this:\r\n<ul>\u201cVictor Frankenstein\u2019s education in unnaturally isolated environments fosters his tragic ambition.\u201d<\/ul>\r\n<h3>8. Organize your evidence<\/h3>\r\nOnce you have a clear thesis you can go back to your list of selected evidence and group all the similar details together. The ideas that tie these clusters of evidence together can then become the claims that you\u2019ll make in your paper. As you begin thinking about what claims you can make (i.e. what kinds of conclusion you can come to) keep in mind that they should not only relate to all the evidence but also clearly support your thesis. Once you\u2019re satisfied with the way you\u2019ve grouped your evidence and with the way that your claims relate to your thesis, you can begin to consider the most logical way to organize each of those claims. To support my thesis about Frankenstein, I\u2019ve decided to group my evidence chronologically. I\u2019ll start with Victor\u2019s education at home, then discuss his learning at the University, and finally address his own experiments. This arrangement will let me show that Victor was always prone to isolation in his education and that this tendency gets stronger as he becomes more ambitious.\r\n\r\nThere are certainly other organizational options that might work better depending on the type of points I want to stress. I could organize a discussion of education by the various forms of education found in the novel (for example, education through reading, through classrooms, and through observation), by specific characters (education for Victor, the monster, and Victor\u2019s bride, Elizabeth), or by the effects of various types of education (those with harmful, beneficial, or neutral effects).\r\n<h3>9. Interpret your evidence<\/h3>\r\nAvoid the temptation to load your paper with evidence from your story. Each time you use a specific reference to your story, be sure to explain the significance of that evidence in your own words. To get your readers\u2019 interest, you need to draw their attention to elements of the story that they wouldn\u2019t necessarily notice or understand on their own. If you\u2019re quoting passages without interpreting them, you\u2019re not demonstrating your reasoning skills or helping the reader. In most cases, interpreting your evidence merely involves putting into your paper what is already in your head. Remember that we, as readers, are lazy\u2014all of us. We don\u2019t want to have to figure out a writer\u2019s reasoning for ourselves; we want all the thinking to be done for us in the paper.\r\n<h2>General hints<\/h2>\r\nThe previous nine steps are intended to give you a sense of the tasks usually involved in writing a good interpretive paper. What follows are just some additional hints that might help you find an interesting topic and maybe even make the process a little more enjoyable.\r\n<h3>Make your thesis relevant to your readers<\/h3>\r\nYou\u2019ll be able to keep your readers\u2019 attention more easily if you pick a topic that relates to daily experience. Avoid writing a paper that identifies a pattern in a story but doesn\u2019t quite explain why that pattern leads to an interesting interpretation. Identifying the biblical references in Frankenstein might provide a good start to a paper\u2014Mary Shelley does use a lot of biblical allusions\u2014but a good paper must also tell the reader why those references are meaningful. So what makes an interesting paper topic? Simply put, it has to address issues that we can use in our own lives. Your thesis should be able to answer the brutal question \u201cSo what?\u201d Does your paper tell your reader something relevant about the context of the story you\u2019re interpreting or about the human condition?\r\n\r\nSome categories, like race, gender, and social class, are dependable sources of interest. This is not to say that all good papers necessarily deal with one of these issues. My thesis on education in Frankenstein does not. But a lot of readers would probably be less interested in reading a paper that traces the instances of water imagery than in reading a paper that compares male or female stereotypes used in a story or that takes a close look at relationships between characters of different races. Again, don\u2019t feel compelled to write on race, gender, or class. The main idea is that you ask yourself whether the topic you\u2019ve selected connects with a major human concern, and there are a lot of options here (for example, issues that relate to economics, family dynamics, education, religion, law, politics, sexuality, history, and psychology, among others).\r\n\r\nAlso, don\u2019t assume that as long as you address one of these issues, your paper will be interesting. As mentioned in step 2, you need to address these big topics in a complex way. Doing this requires that you don\u2019t go into a topic with a preconceived notion of what you\u2019ll find. Be prepared to challenge your own ideas about what gender, race, or class mean in a particular text.\r\n<h3>Select a topic of interest to you<\/h3>\r\nThough you may feel like you have to select a topic that sounds like something your instructor would be interested in, don\u2019t overlook the fact that you\u2019ll be more invested in your paper and probably get more out of it if you make the topic something pertinent to yourself. Pick a topic that might allow you to learn about yourself and what you find important.\r\n\r\nOf course, your topic can\u2019t entirely be of your choosing. We\u2019re always at the mercy of the evidence that\u2019s available to us. For example, your interest may really be in political issues, but if you\u2019re reading Frankenstein, you might face some difficulties in finding enough evidence to make a good paper on that kind of topic. If, on the other hand, you\u2019re interested in ethics, philosophy, science, psychology, religion, or even geography, you\u2019ll probably have more than enough to write about and find yourself in the good position of having to select only the best pieces of evidence.\r\n<h3>Make your thesis specific<\/h3>\r\nThe effort to be more specific almost always leads to a thesis that will get your reader\u2019s attention, and it also separates you from the crowd as someone who challenges ideas and looks into topics more deeply. A paper about education in general in Frankenstein will probably not get my reader\u2019s attention as much as a more specific topic about the impact of the learning environment on the main character. My readers may have already thought to some extent about ideas of education in the novel, if they have read it, but the chance that they have thought through something more specific like the educational environment is slimmer.\r\n<h2>Works consulted<\/h2>\r\nWe consulted these works while writing the original version of this handout. This is not a comprehensive list of resources on the handout\u2019s topic, and we encourage you to do your own research to find the latest publications on this topic. Please do not use this list as a model for the format of your own reference list, as it may not match the citation style you are using. For guidance on formatting citations, please see the\u00a0<a href=\"http:\/\/www.lib.unc.edu\/instruct\/citations\/\">UNC Libraries citation tutorial<\/a>.\r\n\r\n<em>Mary Shelley\u2019s Frankenstein: Or, The Modern Prometheus.<\/em>\u00a0New York: Signet, 1965.\r\n\r\nBarnet, Sylvan.\u00a0<em>A Short Guide to Writing About Literature.<\/em>\u00a09th ed. New York: Longman, 2003.","rendered":"<div class=\"page-header\">\n<h1>Literature (Fiction)<\/h1>\n<\/div>\n<h2>Demystifying the process<\/h2>\n<p>Writing an analysis of a piece of fiction can be a mystifying process. First, literary analyses (or papers that offer an interpretation of a story) rely on the assumption that stories must mean something. How does a story mean something? Isn\u2019t a story just an arrangement of characters and events? And if the author wanted to convey a meaning, wouldn\u2019t he or she be much better off writing an essay just telling us what he or she meant?<\/p>\n<p>It\u2019s pretty easy to see how at least some stories convey clear meanings or morals. Just think about a parable like the prodigal son or a nursery tale about \u201ccrying wolf.\u201d Stories like these are reduced down to the bare elements, giving us just enough detail to lead us to their main points, and because they are relatively easy to understand and tend to stick in our memories, they\u2019re often used in some kinds of education.<\/p>\n<p>But if the meanings were always as clear as they are in parables, who would really need to write a paper analyzing them? Interpretations of fiction would not be interesting if the meanings of the stories were clear to everyone who reads them. Thankfully (or perhaps regrettably, depending on your perspective) the stories we\u2019re asked to interpret in our classes are a good bit more complicated than most parables. They use characters, settings, and actions to illustrate issues that have no easy resolution. They show different sides of a problem, and they can raise new questions. In short, the stories we read in class have meanings that are arguable and complicated, and it\u2019s our job to sort them out.<\/p>\n<p>It might seem that the stories do have specific meanings, and the instructor has already decided what those meanings are. Not true. Instructors can be pretty dazzling (or mystifying) with their interpretations, but that\u2019s because they have a lot of practice with stories and have developed a sense of the kinds of things to look for. Even so, the most well-informed professor rarely arrives at conclusions that someone else wouldn\u2019t disagree with. In fact, most professors are aware that their interpretations are debatable and actually love a good argument. But let\u2019s not go to the other extreme. To say that there is no one answer is not to say that anything we decide to say about a novel or short story is valid, interesting, or valuable. Interpretations of fiction are often opinions, but not all opinions are equal.<\/p>\n<p>So what makes a valid and interesting opinion?\u00a0<strong>A good interpretation of fiction will:<\/strong><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>avoid the obvious (in other words, it won\u2019t argue a conclusion that most readers could reach on their own from a general knowledge of the story)<\/li>\n<li>support its main points with strong evidence from the story<\/li>\n<li>use careful reasoning to explain how that evidence relates to the main points of the interpretation.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>The following steps are intended as a guide through the difficult process of writing an interpretive paper that meets these criteria. Writing tends to be a highly individual task, so adapt these suggestions to fit your own habits and inclinations.<\/p>\n<h2>Writing a paper on fiction in 9 steps<\/h2>\n<h3>1. Become familiar with the text<\/h3>\n<p>There\u2019s no substitute for a good general knowledge of your story. A good paper inevitably begins with the writer having a solid understanding of the work that he or she interprets. Being able to have the whole book, short story, or play in your head\u2014at least in a general way\u2014when you begin thinking through ideas will be a great help and will actually allow you to write the paper more quickly in the long run. It\u2019s even a good idea to spend some time just thinking about the story. Flip back through the book and consider what interests you about this piece of writing\u2014what seemed strange, new, or important?<\/p>\n<h3>2. Explore potential topics<\/h3>\n<p>Perhaps your instructor has given you a list of topics to choose, or perhaps you have been asked to create your own. Either way, you\u2019ll need to generate ideas to use in the paper\u2014even with an assigned topic, you\u2019ll have to develop your own interpretation. Let\u2019s assume for now that you are choosing your own topic.<\/p>\n<p>After reading your story, a topic may just jump out at you, or you may have recognized a pattern or identified a problem that you\u2019d like to think about in more detail. What is a pattern or a problem?<\/p>\n<p>A pattern can be the recurrence of certain kinds of imagery or events. Usually, repetition of particular aspects of a story (similar events in the plot, similar descriptions, even repetition of particular words) tends to render those elements more conspicuous. Let\u2019s say I\u2019m writing a paper on Mary Shelley\u2019s novel Frankenstein. In the course of reading that book, I keep noticing the author\u2019s use of biblical imagery: Victor Frankenstein anticipates that \u201ca new species would bless me as its creator and source\u201d (52) while the monster is not sure whether to consider himself as an Adam or a Satan. These details might help me interpret the way characters think about themselves and about each other, as well as allow me to infer what the author might have wanted her reader to think by using the Bible as a frame of reference. On another subject, I also notice that the book repeatedly refers to types of education. The story mentions books that its characters read and the different contexts in which learning takes place.<\/p>\n<p>A problem, on the other hand, is something in the story that bugs you or that doesn\u2019t seem to add up. A character might act in some way that\u2019s unaccountable, a narrator may leave out what we think is important information (or may focus on something that seems trivial), or a narrator or character may offer an explanation that doesn\u2019t seem to make sense to us. Not all problems lead in interesting directions, but some definitely do and even seem to be important parts of the story. In Frankenstein, Victor works day and night to achieve his goal of bringing life to the dead, but once he realizes his goal, he is immediately repulsed by his creation and runs away. Why? Is there something wrong with his creation, something wrong with his goal in the first place, or something wrong with Victor himself? The book doesn\u2019t give us a clear answer but seems to invite us to interpret this problem.<\/p>\n<p>If nothing immediately strikes you as interesting or no patterns or problems jump out at you, don\u2019t worry. Just start making a list of whatever you remember from your reading, regardless of how insignificant it may seem to you now. Consider a character\u2019s peculiar behavior or comments, the unusual way the narrator describes an event, or the author\u2019s placement of an action in an odd context. (Step 5 will cover some further elements of fiction that you might find useful at this stage as well.)<\/p>\n<p>There\u2019s a good chance that some of these intriguing moments and oddities will relate to other points in the story, eventually revealing some kind of pattern and giving you potential topics for your paper. Also keep in mind that if you found something peculiar in the story you\u2019re writing about, chances are good that other people will have been perplexed by these moments in the story as well and will be interested to see how you make sense of it all. It\u2019s even a good idea to test your ideas out on a friend, a classmate, or an instructor since talking about your ideas will help you develop them and push them beyond obvious interpretations of the story. And it\u2019s only by pushing those ideas that you can write a paper that raises interesting issues or problems and that offers creative interpretations related to those issues.<\/p>\n<h3>3. Select a topic with a lot of evidence<\/h3>\n<p>If you\u2019re selecting from a number of possible topics, narrow down your list by identifying how much evidence or how many specific details you could use to investigate each potential issue. Do this step just off the top of your head. Keep in mind that persuasive papers rely on ample evidence and that having a lot of details to choose from can also make your paper easier to write.<\/p>\n<p>It might be helpful at this point to jot down all the events or elements of the story that have some bearing on the two or three topics that seem most promising. This can give you a more visual sense of how much evidence you will have to work with on each potential topic. It\u2019s during this activity that having a good knowledge of your story will come in handy and save you a lot of time. Don\u2019t launch into a topic without considering all the options first because you may end up with a topic that seemed promising initially but that only leads to a dead end.<\/p>\n<h3>4. Write out a working thesis<\/h3>\n<p>Based on the evidence that relates to your topic\u2014and what you anticipate you might say about those pieces of evidence\u2014come up with a working thesis. Don\u2019t spend a lot of time composing this statement at this stage since it will probably change (and a changing thesis statement is a good sign that you\u2019re starting to say more interesting and complex things on your subject). At this point in my Frankenstein project, I\u2019ve become interested in ideas on education that seem to appear pretty regularly, and I have a general sense that aspects of Victor\u2019s education lead to tragedy. Without considering things too deeply, I\u2019ll just write something like \u201cVictor Frankenstein\u2019s tragic ambition was fueled by a faulty education.\u201d<\/p>\n<h3>5. Make an extended list of evidence<\/h3>\n<p>Once you have a working topic in mind, skim back over the story and make a more comprehensive list of the details that relate to your point. For my paper about education in Frankenstein, I\u2019ll want to take notes on what Victor Frankenstein reads at home, where he goes to school and why, what he studies at school, what others think about those studies, etc. And even though I\u2019m primarily interested in Victor\u2019s education, at this stage in the writing, I\u2019m also interested in moments of education in the novel that don\u2019t directly involve this character. These other examples might provide a context or some useful contrasts that could illuminate my evidence relating to Victor. With this goal in mind, I\u2019ll also take notes on how the monster educates himself, what he reads, and what he learns from those he watches. As you make your notes keep track of page numbers so you can quickly find the passages in your book again and so you can easily document quoted passages when you write without having to fish back through the book.<\/p>\n<p>At this point, you want to include anything, anything, that might be useful, and you also want to avoid the temptation to arrive at definite conclusions about your topic. Remember that one of the qualities that makes for a good interpretation is that it avoids the obvious. You want to develop complex ideas, and the best way to do that is to keep your ideas flexible until you\u2019ve considered the evidence carefully. A good gauge of complexity is whether you feel you understand more about your topic than you did when you began (and even just reaching a higher state of confusion is a good indicator that you\u2019re treating your topic in a complex way).<\/p>\n<p>When you jot down ideas, you can focus on the observations from the narrator or things that certain characters say or do. These elements are certainly important. It might help you come up with more evidence if you also take into account some of the broader components that go into making fiction, things like plot, point of view, character, setting, and symbols.<\/p>\n<p>Plot is the string of events that go into the narrative. Think of this as the \u201cwho did what to whom\u201d part of the story. Plots can be significant in themselves since chances are pretty good that some action in the story will relate to your main idea. For my paper on education in Frankenstein, I\u2019m interested in Victor\u2019s going to the University of Ingolstadt to realize his father\u2019s wish that Victor attend school where he could learn about a another culture. Plots can also allow you to make connections between the story you\u2019re interpreting and some other stories, and those connections might be useful in your interpretation. For example, the plot of Frankenstein, which involves a man who desires to bring life to the dead and creates a monster in the process, bears some similarity to the ancient Greek story of Icarus who flew too close to the sun on his wax wings. Both tell the story of a character who reaches too ambitiously after knowledge and suffers dire consequences.<\/p>\n<p>Your plot could also have similarities to whole groups of other stories, all having conventional or easily recognizable plots. These types of stories are often called genres. Some popular genres include the gothic, the romance, the detective story, the bildungsroman (this is just a German term for a novel that is centered around the development of its main characters), and the novel of manners (a novel that focuses on the behavior and foibles of a particular class or social group). These categories are often helpful in characterizing a piece of writing, but this approach has its limitations. Many novels don\u2019t fit nicely into one genre, and others seem to borrow a bit from a variety of different categories. For example, given my working thesis on education, I am more interested in Victor\u2019s development than in relating Frankenstein to the gothic genre, so I might decide to treat the novel as a bildungsroman.<\/p>\n<p>And just to complicate matters that much more, genre can sometimes take into account not only the type of plot but the form the novelist uses to convey that plot. A story might be told in a series of letters (this is called an epistolary form), in a sequence of journal entries, or in a combination of forms (Frankenstein is actually told as a journal included within a letter).<\/p>\n<p>These matters of form also introduce questions of point of view, that is, who is telling the story and what do they or don\u2019t they know. Is the tale told by an omniscient or all-knowing narrator who doesn\u2019t interact in the events, or is it presented by one of the characters within the story? Can the reader trust that person to give an objective account, or does that narrator color the story with his or her own biases and interests?<\/p>\n<p>Character refers to the qualities assigned to the individual figures in the plot. Consider why the author assigns certain qualities to a character or characters and how any such qualities might relate to your topic. For example, a discussion of Victor Frankenstein\u2019s education might take into account aspects of his character that appear to be developed (or underdeveloped) by the particular kind of education he undertakes. Victor tends to be ambitious, even compulsive about his studies, and I might be able to argue that his tendency to be extravagant leads him to devote his own education to writers who asserted grand, if questionable, conclusions.<\/p>\n<p>Setting is the environment in which all of the actions take place. What is the time period, the location, the time of day, the season, the weather, the type of room or building? What is the general mood, and who is present? All of these elements can reflect on the story\u2019s events, and though the setting of a story tends to be less conspicuous than plot and character, setting still colors everything that\u2019s said and done within its context. If Victor Frankenstein does all of his experiments in \u201ca solitary chamber, or rather a cell, at the top of the house, and separated from all the other apartments by a staircase\u201d (53) we might conclude that there is something anti-social, isolated, and stale, maybe even unnatural about his project and his way of learning.<\/p>\n<p>Obviously, if you consider all of these elements, you\u2019ll probably have too much evidence to fit effectively into one paper. Your goal is merely to consider each of these aspects of fiction and include only those that are most relevant to your topic and most interesting to your reader. A good interpretive paper does not need to cover all elements of the story\u2014plot, genre, narrative form, character, and setting. In fact, a paper that did try to say something about all of these elements would be unfocused. You might find that most of your topic could be supported by a consideration of character alone. That\u2019s fine. For my Frankenstein paper, I\u2019m finding that my evidence largely has to do with the setting, evidence that could lead to some interesting conclusions that my reader probably hasn\u2019t recognized on his or her own.<\/p>\n<h3>6. Select your evidence<\/h3>\n<p>Once you\u2019ve made your expanded list of evidence, decide which supporting details are the strongest. First, select the facts which bear the closest relation to your thesis statement. Second, choose the pieces of evidence you\u2019ll be able to say the most about. Readers tend to be more dazzled with your interpretations of evidence than with a lot of quotes from the book. It would be useful to refer to Victor Frankenstein\u2019s youthful reading in alchemy, but my reader will be more impressed by some analysis of how the writings of the alchemists\u2014who pursued magical principles of chemistry and physics\u2014reflect the ambition of his own goals. Select the details that will allow you to show off your own reasoning skills and allow you to help the reader see the story in a way he or she may not have seen it before.<\/p>\n<h3>7. Refine your thesis<\/h3>\n<p>Now it\u2019s time to go back to your working thesis and refine it so that it reflects your new understanding of your topic. This step and the previous step (selecting evidence) are actually best done at the same time, since selecting your evidence and defining the focus of your paper depend upon each other. Don\u2019t forget to consider the scope of your project: how long is the paper supposed to be, and what can you reasonably cover in a paper of that length? In rethinking the issue of education in Frankenstein, I realize that I can narrow my topic in a number of ways: I could focus on education and culture (Victor\u2019s education abroad), education in the sciences as opposed to the humanities (the monster reads Milton, Goethe, and Plutarch), or differences in learning environments (e.g. independent study, university study, family reading). Since I think I found some interesting evidence in the settings that I can interpret in a way that will get my reader\u2019s attention, I\u2019ll take this last option and refine my working thesis about Victor\u2019s faulty education to something like this:<\/p>\n<ul>          <\/ul>\n<h3>8. Organize your evidence<\/h3>\n<p>Once you have a clear thesis you can go back to your list of selected evidence and group all the similar details together. The ideas that tie these clusters of evidence together can then become the claims that you\u2019ll make in your paper. As you begin thinking about what claims you can make (i.e. what kinds of conclusion you can come to) keep in mind that they should not only relate to all the evidence but also clearly support your thesis. Once you\u2019re satisfied with the way you\u2019ve grouped your evidence and with the way that your claims relate to your thesis, you can begin to consider the most logical way to organize each of those claims. To support my thesis about Frankenstein, I\u2019ve decided to group my evidence chronologically. I\u2019ll start with Victor\u2019s education at home, then discuss his learning at the University, and finally address his own experiments. This arrangement will let me show that Victor was always prone to isolation in his education and that this tendency gets stronger as he becomes more ambitious.<\/p>\n<p>There are certainly other organizational options that might work better depending on the type of points I want to stress. I could organize a discussion of education by the various forms of education found in the novel (for example, education through reading, through classrooms, and through observation), by specific characters (education for Victor, the monster, and Victor\u2019s bride, Elizabeth), or by the effects of various types of education (those with harmful, beneficial, or neutral effects).<\/p>\n<h3>9. Interpret your evidence<\/h3>\n<p>Avoid the temptation to load your paper with evidence from your story. Each time you use a specific reference to your story, be sure to explain the significance of that evidence in your own words. To get your readers\u2019 interest, you need to draw their attention to elements of the story that they wouldn\u2019t necessarily notice or understand on their own. If you\u2019re quoting passages without interpreting them, you\u2019re not demonstrating your reasoning skills or helping the reader. In most cases, interpreting your evidence merely involves putting into your paper what is already in your head. Remember that we, as readers, are lazy\u2014all of us. We don\u2019t want to have to figure out a writer\u2019s reasoning for ourselves; we want all the thinking to be done for us in the paper.<\/p>\n<h2>General hints<\/h2>\n<p>The previous nine steps are intended to give you a sense of the tasks usually involved in writing a good interpretive paper. What follows are just some additional hints that might help you find an interesting topic and maybe even make the process a little more enjoyable.<\/p>\n<h3>Make your thesis relevant to your readers<\/h3>\n<p>You\u2019ll be able to keep your readers\u2019 attention more easily if you pick a topic that relates to daily experience. Avoid writing a paper that identifies a pattern in a story but doesn\u2019t quite explain why that pattern leads to an interesting interpretation. Identifying the biblical references in Frankenstein might provide a good start to a paper\u2014Mary Shelley does use a lot of biblical allusions\u2014but a good paper must also tell the reader why those references are meaningful. So what makes an interesting paper topic? Simply put, it has to address issues that we can use in our own lives. Your thesis should be able to answer the brutal question \u201cSo what?\u201d Does your paper tell your reader something relevant about the context of the story you\u2019re interpreting or about the human condition?<\/p>\n<p>Some categories, like race, gender, and social class, are dependable sources of interest. This is not to say that all good papers necessarily deal with one of these issues. My thesis on education in Frankenstein does not. But a lot of readers would probably be less interested in reading a paper that traces the instances of water imagery than in reading a paper that compares male or female stereotypes used in a story or that takes a close look at relationships between characters of different races. Again, don\u2019t feel compelled to write on race, gender, or class. The main idea is that you ask yourself whether the topic you\u2019ve selected connects with a major human concern, and there are a lot of options here (for example, issues that relate to economics, family dynamics, education, religion, law, politics, sexuality, history, and psychology, among others).<\/p>\n<p>Also, don\u2019t assume that as long as you address one of these issues, your paper will be interesting. As mentioned in step 2, you need to address these big topics in a complex way. Doing this requires that you don\u2019t go into a topic with a preconceived notion of what you\u2019ll find. Be prepared to challenge your own ideas about what gender, race, or class mean in a particular text.<\/p>\n<h3>Select a topic of interest to you<\/h3>\n<p>Though you may feel like you have to select a topic that sounds like something your instructor would be interested in, don\u2019t overlook the fact that you\u2019ll be more invested in your paper and probably get more out of it if you make the topic something pertinent to yourself. Pick a topic that might allow you to learn about yourself and what you find important.<\/p>\n<p>Of course, your topic can\u2019t entirely be of your choosing. We\u2019re always at the mercy of the evidence that\u2019s available to us. For example, your interest may really be in political issues, but if you\u2019re reading Frankenstein, you might face some difficulties in finding enough evidence to make a good paper on that kind of topic. If, on the other hand, you\u2019re interested in ethics, philosophy, science, psychology, religion, or even geography, you\u2019ll probably have more than enough to write about and find yourself in the good position of having to select only the best pieces of evidence.<\/p>\n<h3>Make your thesis specific<\/h3>\n<p>The effort to be more specific almost always leads to a thesis that will get your reader\u2019s attention, and it also separates you from the crowd as someone who challenges ideas and looks into topics more deeply. A paper about education in general in Frankenstein will probably not get my reader\u2019s attention as much as a more specific topic about the impact of the learning environment on the main character. My readers may have already thought to some extent about ideas of education in the novel, if they have read it, but the chance that they have thought through something more specific like the educational environment is slimmer.<\/p>\n<h2>Works consulted<\/h2>\n<p>We consulted these works while writing the original version of this handout. This is not a comprehensive list of resources on the handout\u2019s topic, and we encourage you to do your own research to find the latest publications on this topic. Please do not use this list as a model for the format of your own reference list, as it may not match the citation style you are using. For guidance on formatting citations, please see the\u00a0<a href=\"http:\/\/www.lib.unc.edu\/instruct\/citations\/\">UNC Libraries citation tutorial<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p><em>Mary Shelley\u2019s Frankenstein: Or, The Modern Prometheus.<\/em>\u00a0New York: Signet, 1965.<\/p>\n<p>Barnet, Sylvan.\u00a0<em>A Short Guide to Writing About Literature.<\/em>\u00a09th ed. New York: Longman, 2003.<\/p>\n\n\t\t\t <section class=\"citations-section\" role=\"contentinfo\">\n\t\t\t <h3>Candela Citations<\/h3>\n\t\t\t\t\t <div>\n\t\t\t\t\t\t <div id=\"citation-list-45\">\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t <div class=\"licensing\"><div class=\"license-attribution-dropdown-subheading\">CC licensed content, Shared previously<\/div><ul class=\"citation-list\"><li><strong>Provided by<\/strong>: University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. <strong>Located at<\/strong>: <a target=\"_blank\" href=\"https:\/\/writingcenter.unc.edu\/tips-and-tools\/literature-fiction\/\">https:\/\/writingcenter.unc.edu\/tips-and-tools\/literature-fiction\/<\/a>. <strong>License<\/strong>: <em><a target=\"_blank\" rel=\"license\" href=\"https:\/\/creativecommons.org\/licenses\/by-nc-nd\/4.0\/\">CC BY-NC-ND: Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives <\/a><\/em><\/li><\/ul><\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t\t <\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t <\/div>\n\t\t\t <\/section>","protected":false},"author":150,"menu_order":9,"template":"","meta":{"_candela_citation":"[{\"type\":\"cc\",\"description\":\"\",\"author\":\"\",\"organization\":\"University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/writingcenter.unc.edu\/tips-and-tools\/literature-fiction\/\",\"project\":\"\",\"license\":\"cc-by-nc-nd\",\"license_terms\":\"\"}]","CANDELA_OUTCOMES_GUID":"","pb_show_title":"on","pb_short_title":"","pb_subtitle":"","pb_authors":[],"pb_section_license":""},"chapter-type":[],"contributor":[],"license":[],"class_list":["post-45","chapter","type-chapter","status-publish","hentry"],"part":28,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/courses.lumenlearning.com\/sunycorning1020elec201819\/wp-json\/pressbooks\/v2\/chapters\/45","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/courses.lumenlearning.com\/sunycorning1020elec201819\/wp-json\/pressbooks\/v2\/chapters"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/courses.lumenlearning.com\/sunycorning1020elec201819\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/chapter"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/courses.lumenlearning.com\/sunycorning1020elec201819\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/150"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/courses.lumenlearning.com\/sunycorning1020elec201819\/wp-json\/pressbooks\/v2\/chapters\/45\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":216,"href":"https:\/\/courses.lumenlearning.com\/sunycorning1020elec201819\/wp-json\/pressbooks\/v2\/chapters\/45\/revisions\/216"}],"part":[{"href":"https:\/\/courses.lumenlearning.com\/sunycorning1020elec201819\/wp-json\/pressbooks\/v2\/parts\/28"}],"metadata":[{"href":"https:\/\/courses.lumenlearning.com\/sunycorning1020elec201819\/wp-json\/pressbooks\/v2\/chapters\/45\/metadata\/"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/courses.lumenlearning.com\/sunycorning1020elec201819\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=45"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"chapter-type","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/courses.lumenlearning.com\/sunycorning1020elec201819\/wp-json\/pressbooks\/v2\/chapter-type?post=45"},{"taxonomy":"contributor","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/courses.lumenlearning.com\/sunycorning1020elec201819\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/contributor?post=45"},{"taxonomy":"license","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/courses.lumenlearning.com\/sunycorning1020elec201819\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/license?post=45"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}