Validity, reliability and transferability of data

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Novelists often use language to communicate intention or ideas to his readers through characters with a combination of some elements. Such elements include plot, setting, subject matter, theme, point of view and vision.

3.4.1 Plot

This is the organised sequence of events in the novel. The plot of a novel is not its story, but the lined up, chronological, organised order of the entire events of the story that make up the novel. Plots are of various types; they could be simple or complex.

3.4.2 Simple Plot

The events in simple plot novels are usually in chronological order following the adventure of the hero or major character to its end. An example is Daniel Defoe‟s Moll Flanders (1722).

3.4.3 Complex Plot

In this types of plot, the author‟s order of arrangement do not often follow an easily traceable form, as the reader may have to adopt the use of careful logic to re-organise the story for easy follow up. This is because the incident that ends the novel may begin in the middle or may even end it. The reader is given the task of rearranging or reorganising the plot so as to piece together the different parts that may not be chronologically arranged. Examples are Emily Bronte‟s Wuthering Heights (1847) and Jane Austen‟s Emma (1816).

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Plots of a story often develop in the following stages. They are:

 Expository – the writer introduces the characters and setting to begin the conflict;

 The conflict moves/develops through the rising action;

 The high point of the story is its climax;

 The author explains the results of the climax through the falling action

 The conflict is resolved in its resolution/dénouement.

3.4.4 Subject Matter

This is the immediate concern of the novelist in a novel. For example, William Golding‟s Lord of the Flies is concerned at the immediate level with how a group of school children scattered in the different parts of an island, tried to make a home and survive. But other deeper concerns are the humanities of man to man and the disorganised form of the modern person‟s form of government. There is just a slight difference between the subject matter and the themes in a novel. The subject is all what the story is about.

3.4.5 Theme

This is the sum total of the ideas in a novel. Theme is deeper than subject matter. For example, the theme of Earnest Hemingway‟s Old man and the Sea is life as a place of continuous struggle for survival. George Orwell‟s Animal Farm is about social economic and political oppression.

3.4.6 Characterisation

This is another important element of the novel. Characters are the fictive personae that carry and execute the events in a novel. They are often given the qualities of human beings and made to act like one in a given or created fictive environment such that their behaviours appear real like that of the real you and I. In a novel, characters can be flat or rounded.

3.4.6.1 Flat or two Dimensional Characters

They are often given a simple portrayal in novels and little is often known about them.

There is limit to their growth; often a little static. Flat characters cannot be measured, the same way all human beings cannot be heroic or equal in behaviour - social, economic status, etc. For example, many of the characters in Louis Robinson Stevenson‟s Treasure Island are flat or not fully developed.

3.4.6.2 Rounded or Three-dimensional Characters

Such characters are complex and fully developed. They grow along through the circumstances created by the writer of the novel. S/he may even see them from childhood till old age, even till death. An example is Crusoe in Daniel Defoe‟s Robison Crusoe.

3.4.6 Time and Space in the Novel

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The action in the novel passes through time periods. This is also a passage of time. It is through time and space that the events in the novel acquire its reality and correctness. Action in a novel is considered for human good when it transcends or passes through time and space. Time in fiction can be used in two categories:

chronological and functional.

Fig. 3 Action as time functional and chronological

Adapted from Akachi Ezeigbo (1981)

3.4.7 Character’s level of involvement in the Novel

Characters in the novel genre are not often of equal level of involvement in the conflicts they generate. Character‟s level of participation, performance, general involvement in the crises and the strength of endurance, climaxing of events in the novel, all go a long way to determine involvements. All characters, flat or rounded, are naturally involved in any novel, no matter how minimal or minute the character‟s role may be.

3.4.8 Setting

This is the physical environment, place or location in which the events in a novel take place. Traditional narratives have no physical setting but fictive setting like, “once upon a time, in the community of the fishes...” It is the ability of the novelist to describe the setting convincingly that makes the novel appear real. For example, William Golding‟s Lord of the Flies is set in an island, thus the island becomes a reflection of our bigger, but real world.

Time Time can be measured or

quantified; for instance at 25, Glory graduated from the University and married at 35.

Chronological

Time not quantified in terms of growth. It develops from a level of situation to another. In this context, time is measured by the experience gained, not how much time spent.

Functional

106 3.4.9 Language

It is through language that literature is expressed. The novelist put words in the mouth of the characters he has created and makes them speak and perform some actions. But the use of language differentiates one character from another, father from a son, a king from his subjects and so on. A character may be non-human like wind, trees or animals. The novelist‟s ability to use language, manipulate tones, use figurative, idioms, irony, proverbs, humour, amongst others, contribute to the style of the writer.

3.4.10 Point of View

This is the way in which the novelist gets his story told through which he wins the reader‟s sympathy. It is the position through which events are observed in the novel. It is the way a writer presents his characters through action and dialogue. The method of storytelling is an important element in the novel. Some important points of view are discussed below.

3.4.10.1 Eye of God or Omniscient Point of View

This is a way of telling stories in which the author presents the story as everything.

S/He knows the actions, events, characters and other things in the story. The omniscient narrator moves into and out of events, as s/he knows everything, events, movements of the story, time and space. S/he knows the private life, innermost thoughts, feelings emotions of the characters. As a result of such attributes, the storyteller is often called the “Eye of God”. This is different from the editorial omniscience or objective/intrusive narrator who simply reports and comments on and evaluates the actions and motives of the characters. This technique has been used in Matthew‟s Truth’s Half way to Hell (1975) and Henry Fielding‟s Joseph Andrew.

(1742)

3.4.10.2 Multiple Points Of View

A number of characters tell the story, revealing their views and judgments on a story such that the reader is at a vantage position to understand the story. There may not be a central character but a number of narrators who move the story forward with each commenting on the story.

3.4.10.3 Mixed Point of View

This style of storytelling is not common; it happens when there is an alternative of the omniscience or other point of view.

SELF ASSESSMENT EXERCISE

Differentiate between the epistolary and the sociological novels.

107 4.0 CONCLUSION

In this unit, we have defined the novel genre, the factors that gave rise to the novel, types of the novel, its elements, time and space in the novel. We also relate the novel to concepts like setting, language, and point of view as well as the meaning of character‟s scale of involvement in the crisis in a novel.

5.0 SUMMARY

In this unit, you have learnt:

 the definition of the novel;

 factors that gave rise to the novel;

 types of the novel;

 elements of the novel;

 the meaning of character‟s involvement in a novel;

In the next unit, you will be introduced to the themes and style in the English Novel (1).

6.0 TUTOR-MARKED ASSIGNMENTS (TMA)