Senior English Critical Writing Handbook - Selwyn House School

How does this Venn diagram stimulate analysis? Let us say that you have decided thatcharacterization is the element that most contributes to the success of a novel you are writingabout. Your best procedure for a critical essay would be first to ask yourself what methods theauthor has used to create the most striking and significant of his characters. Your list mightinclude what the author says of him (“direct characterization”), what others say of him, what hesays of himself, both in conversation and thought, what characters parallel or contrast with him,and so forth. The most important method, however, will nearly always be the way in which acharacter acts. Now the moment we mention action, we are speaking about plot; consequently,we must see that plot and characterization overlap in a most powerful way. In fact, the mostimportant elements of plot, characterization, theme, setting, and style are precisely the elementsin each that overlap. A Venn diagram, then, stimulates creative analysis by showing us that twothings we thought were separate were really, in their most important essentials, some larger thirdthing. The best way of constructing a plot, for example, is to start with a set of distinctivecharacters and then describe what these characters would do, given a certain setting in time andplace. To analyze a plot in the best way, it is only necessary to know which is the best way ofconstructing it and then determine whether the author appears to have taken that way. A geometricalfigure like the Venn diagram does, then, give you as an analyst (and also as a creator) aliberating boost.The geometrical figure brings into a single focus, then, the implications of all the elements of aliterary work; in doing so, it allows analysis and interpretation to proceed simultaneously.InterpretationTo interpret a thing is to explain what it means. Very often an essay that relies in its analysis onthe standard or conventional divisions of a topic does very little interpreting other thanexplaining the quotations excerpted from the work; such an essay only suggests an interpretationof the work, rather than spelling the meaning out explicitly. More often than not, the writer of theconventional critical essay waits until his concluding paragraph to interpret—an excellent place,since the end of any composition is what the reader remembers best, and the place, consequently,where the writer is wisest to wax eloquent. The writer who has analyzed in an original way, onthe other hand, will automatically have spread the interpretation of the work throughout the4