III-II Check-List Of Novel Extracts Analysis.

III-II CHECK-LIST OF NOVEL EXTRACTS ANALYSIS
(With Special Reference to Tristram Shandy)

Prepared By
Ahmed Gamal


1- Action: Complication – Climax – Resolution.
Tristram’s Life Story: Conception – Birth – Childhood – Adulthood (Journey to France).
External Digressions: Yorick’s Story – Diego’s Story – Le Fever’s Story – Uncle Toby’s Amorous Story with Widow Wadman.
Internal Digressions: Intertextuality – Historical Allusions.


2- Themes: e.g. Impotence – Contingency/Misfortune – Miscommunication – Fall & Decline – Sentimentalism.


3- Motifs: e.g. Names – Noses – Whiskers – Hobby-Horses – Don Quixote – Time/Duration – Knots – Trains of Thoughts – Sermons- Excommunication.


4- Characterisation:

Character Type:

Hero: Tristram Shandy.
Major: Walter Shandy – Toby Shandy.
Minor: Mrs. Shandy – Dr. Slop – Trim – Obadiah – Susannah – Parson Yorick – Widow Wadman.
Foil: Yorick – Toby – Diego.

Characterisation Technique:

Explicit: Narrative comment.
Implicit: Appearance – speech – action – others opinions – Thoughts (Associations: Source: [Ideas – Impressions – Words] Logical Link: Place – Time – Resemblance – Contiguity – Contrast – Causation).


5- Time:

General Time Reference: (Age (modern) – Century).
Specific Time Reference: (Year – Season – Month – Day)
Tense: Past – Present – Future.
Tense Switch: (Change of Perspective – intensification – distancing).
Flashback - Flasforward


6- Space:

Public Space Reference: (Country – City – Countryside).
Private Space Reference: (House – Room – Chamber – Chair – Desk).
Open Space Reference: Desert – Sea – Inland.
Closed Space Reference: Cottage – Hospital.
Spatial Opposites: City vs.Country – Civilization vs. Nature – Transitional Space vs. Permanent Space.
Deictic Orientation: Near & Far – Here & There – Left & Right – Come & Go.
Semantically Charged Space: Emotive Connotations (Gloom/Grey: Tragic – Sunny/Spacious: Hopeful).


7- Narrative Situation:

First-person Narrative: Pronouns.
Experiencing “I”: (Narrator as Character).
Narrating “I”:
Phatic Function (Maintaining contact with the Addressee) e.g. “good folks”, “you must know”.
Apellative Function (Persuading the adressee to believe or do something) e.g. “this is not so inconsiderable a thing as many of you may think it… Well, you may take my word, that nine parts in ten of a man’s sense or his nonsense, his success and miscarriages in this world depend upon their motions (animal spirits)” p. 1.
Expressive Function (Expressing his/her own views/emotions) e.g. Tristram’s view of Yorick “I have the highest idea of the spiritual and refined sentiments of this reverned gentleman.” p. 15.
Metanarrative/Reflexive Comments (Commenting on his novel-writing) e.g. “I have begun the history of myself in the way I have done; and I am able to go on tracing everything in it, as Horace says, ab ovo.” p. 4.


8- Style:

Parody: Exaggeration – the application of a serious tone to an absurd subject (e.g. “May he (Obadiah) be damned field, wherever he be, –––– whether in the house or the stables, the garden or the or the highway, or in the path, or in the wood, or in the water, or in the church.”
Humour: A statement or situation that causes laughter (Tristram’s Conversation with the donkey).
Satire: The use of laughter to attack its objects, whether a person or a type. (e.g. The nuns and religious controversies in Diego’s story).
Figures of Speech: metaphor, simile, personification.
Verbal Irony: to state something and to mean the opposite. e.g. “I know no more of Calais than I do this moment of Grand Cairo.”