NARRATOR

Date: 2015-10-07; view: 373.

PLOT

SETTING

ANALYSIS

GLOSSARY

NOTES

Vignette – a portrait usually showing a head and shoulders against a shaded background

Sully – either Robert Sully or his uncle Thomas Sully, both American portrait painters

Moresque – Moorish in style

grandeur

sumptuously

turret

tattered

tapestry

nooks

bizarre

incipient

delirium

to bid

alternately

to purport

subdue

radiant

immortal

countenance

vehemently

to recline

riveted

spell

to confound

to subdue

to appall

reverent

awe

agitation

quaint

austere

frolicksome

fawn

humble

moody

reverie

pine

to have renown

fervid

dispirited

surpassingly

ardour

tints

to flicker

aghast

1. Where does the scene take place? Pick out the details used to describe the house and the turret. What colour is named? What associations do you make with this colour?Circle the words reinforcing the idea of darkness

2. At what time of day does the action take place? What associations do you make with this time?

3. What kind of atmosphere is created by the choice of physical and temporal setting? (mysterious, exotic, hostile, welcoming, monotonous, other...)

1) The time sequence in the pasage involves a flashback. Which paragraphs refer to the events of the past?

2) What effect does the re-ordering of events and the structure of ‘story within a story'have? It

- builds suspense by slowly disclosing the events of the past

- makes the story-telling more natural

- adds to the mysterious, supernatural atmosphere created in the passage

- has some other effect?

3) Is there an exposition?

4) Identify the complication.

5) The story builds to a climax. Where does it occur?

1) The text is narrated in the first person. How does this affect the impact of the text?

- it heightens the emotional intensity

- it creates a detached almost scientific style

- it involves the reader more directly into the text

- other:____________

2) A self-conscious narrator is one who is aware that he is telling a story and draws the reader's attention to this fact. At which point in the text is the reader reminded that he is reading a story?

3) How would you define the narrator's state of mind?

- calm - rational -confused - unbalanced - detached - other

4) What attitude does the narrator seem to have towards telling the story?

a) he is eager to tell the story

b) he is detached and objective

c) he is drawn reluctantly into telling the story

d) he is passionately involved in the problem

5) Which of the following sensations seem to be part of what he is feling? (interst, suffering, confusion, bewilderment, fear, other)

6) Does the narrator describe his feelings directly or does he use more subtle means to communicate the complexity and intensity of emotions. Which of the following techniques can you identify:

· creation of atmosphere

· stylistic devices

· dialogue

· symbolic gesture

· description of setting

· specific vocabulary

· other?