Realize that you will need to read the story more than once. Do not try to interpret the story during the initial reading. Enjoy the experience, listening to the language. After you have read the story a second time, complete the following.
1. Identify the protagonist, and briefly describe him/her/it.
2. Is there an antagonist? If so, briefly describe him/her/it.
3. Are there any flat or stock characters? If so, list them.
4. Do any characters speak in dialect? What are the structures of
their patterns of speech (simple, complex)?
5. Do any of the characters change? Why do they change? Do
any of the characters remain the same?
6. Is the conflict between the protagonist and the antagonist,
between the protagonist and his/her/its fate, between the
protagonist's circumstances and his/her/its goal(s), or between
the oppositional desires and values of the protagonist?
7. What are the general locale, historical time, and social
circumstances of the story?
8. Is there a shift in the setting, and is it significant?
9. Identify the rising action (conflict), highest point of tension
(climax), and falling action (reversal or turning point).
Remember, some short stories begin at the point of the
climax--in media res, "in the middle of things."
10. Is the point of view first person ( a participant using I) or third
person (an outsider using he, she, it, they)? Is the first-person
narrator a major or minor character, and is he/she/it reliable or
unreliable? Is the third-person narrator omniscient (knows the
thoughts and feelings of all the characters), limited (knows the
thoughts and feelings of one or two characters), or objective
(knows only what is external to the characters)?
11. List some of the details in the story. Which senses do they
involve? What is the significance of each image?
12. Identify the tropes you think are significant. Interpret them.
13. Identify the instances of sonic texture you think are significant.
Why do you think such?
14. Theme is neither plot (what occurs) nor subject (such as
happiness or mourning). Rather, it is what the author implies
with the plot about the subject. In other words, plot is a
conception of human experience that a work as a whole
suggests. For example, the theme of Ernest Hemingway's "Hills
Like White Elephants"
is that abortion is a complex affair.What is the theme of the work?
15. Freely answer the following questions, focusing, first, on the
story as a whole and, second, on particular sentences and
paragraphs.
a. Do you like or dislike the story and why?
b. Is the story interesting or uninteresting, and which sentences
or paragraphs do you think are such?
c. Consider all the aforementioned elements. Which critical
approach(es) will help you best analyze and critique the
short story? Remember: do not try to determine the correct
reading. You want to produce an interpretation that you feel
is accurate because you support it with details from the story.
