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General Study Questions for All Stories (From R.V. Cassill)

EXPOSITION AND SETTING:

1) How much background info/history does the author supply? What makes such background necessary or unnecessary?

2) What is of special interest/significance in the setting of the story?

3) How is the setting exploited to enhance or control the mood of the story?


PLOT:

1) Are the meaning and emotional impact of this story heavily dependent on the working out of the plot? Or is the plot—if it is noticeable at all—subordinate to other elements?

2) To what extent does the action of the plot emerge from the kinds of characters depicted in the story?

3) Are there any breaks or omissions in the events or episodes of the plot? Is the outcome of the plot consistent with the plot? If there is a surprise ending, does it emerge from some unforeseen but plausible change in direction of the plot?

4) What character motivations are necessary to move the plot forward?

5) What is the relation between plot line and chronology?


CHARACTER AND CONFLICT:

1) What techniques does the author use to demonstrate the qualities of the central characters?

2) Are they round or flat? Active or passive?

3) Does the story show growth or change? For whom?

4) Does the major conflict in the story seem to arise from an opposition between the main characters and his/her environment? Between two characters? Within one?

5) How has the author worked to involve the reader’s sympathies for certain characters rather than others?

6) To what extent are the characters determined by their time and place?


POINT OF VIEW and NARRATIVE VOICE:

1) Has the author confined the narration to a single point of view? What are the apparent advantages of telling the story from the POV chosen?

2) What would be gained or lost by changing POV? Voice?

3) How is POV complemented by diction or style?

4) Is an illusion of reality enhanced by choice of POV? A sense of immediacy?


DESCRIPTION, REPRESENTATION, SYMBOL:

1) Pick out examples of language used by the author to stimulate and control the reader’s sense of scene?

2) Has the author relied on your familiarity with certain scenes, characters and situations to fill in what has been omitted from the actual text?

3) How has the objectively rendered action of the story helped you to understand the thoughts, emotions and motivations of the characters? Can you fill in the thoughts of those not described?

4) What objects, acts or situations have symbolic meaning? Are the characters aware of these symbolic meanings? Has the author used symbols as a means of communicating to the reader some meanings not implicit in the action and not understood by the characters?


THEME:

1) Does the author make a general statement about life or experience?

2) What values and ideas have been put into the conflict that contribute to the thematic statement?