What is Novel: An Introduction
*Novel is a long narrative, normally in prose, which
descrybes fictional characters and events, usually in the form of
a sequential story.
*It helps people to understand human society and human
psychology.
*The English novel emerged in the middle of the 18 th century
during a period of convulsive social change. During this period,
England developed the world's first capitalist economy and
began to grapple with issues of urbanization, industrialization,
democratization and globalization. These issues heighten
conflicts between established elites and the growing middle
class.
*Novel takes up vital questions of personal identity, social
responsibility and moral values.
*Novel can be identified with two major dimensions: one is
sociological and the other is psychological. In fact, sociological
dimension is associated with social distinction, social
hierarchies and social values, while the psychological dimension
provides vivid images of how individuals think and feel.
*The rise of novel is started with Samuel Richardson and Henry
Fielding. Richardson represents the rising middle class, while
Fielding appears almost aristocratic, confident and secure in his
own social position. In Pamela (1740), Richardson's marries a
rich man to a poor girl, creating an image of a new social
harmony, while Fielding in Joseph Andrews (1742) a poor man
to a poor girl, reinforcing existing class divisions. In other
words, while Richardson accepts the reconciliation between the
classes, Fielding refuses such kind of reconciliation.
In his Aspects of the Novel, Forster states that all of us
shall agree that the fundamental aspect of the novel is its
story-telling aspect, but we shall voice our assent in
different tones, and it is on the precise tone of voice we
employ now that our subsequent conclusions will depend.
Let us listen to three voices. If you ask one type of man,
"What does a novel do?" he will reply placidly: "Well—I
don't know—it seems a funny sort of question to ask—a
novel's a novel—well, I don't know—I suppose it kind of
tells a story, so to speak." He is quite good-tempered and
vague, and probably driving a motor-bus at the same time
and paying no more attention to literature than it merits.
Another man, whom I visualize as on a golf-course, will
be aggressive and brisk. He will reply: "What does a
novel do? Why, tell a story of course, and I've no use for
it if it didn't. I like a story. Very bad taste on my part, no
doubt, but I like a story. You can take your art, you can
take your literature, you can take your music, but give me
a good story. And I like a story to be a story, mind, and
my wife's the same." And a third man he says in a sort of
drooping regretful voice, "Yes—oh, dear, yes—the novel
tells a story." I respect and admire the first speaker. I
detest and fear the second. And the third is myself. Yes—
oh, dear, yes—the novel tells a story. That is the
fundamental aspect without which it could not exist. That
is the highest factor common to all novels, and I wish that
it was not so, that it could be something different—
melody, or perception of the truth, not this low atavistic
form.
The Elements of Novel
1- Plot refers to the sequence of events inside a story which
affect other events through the principle of cause and effect. Plot
is of two kinds: either simple or complex. In a simple plot, there
is only one story and also there are no puzzling situations that
enter into a complex plot, more than one story, in particular
Peripetia and Anagnorisis. Peripetia is generally explained as
‘reversal of the situation’ and Anagnorisis as ‘recognition’ or
‘discovery’.
2- Theme is the central idea of a story that may be stated
directly or indirectly. There are two types of theme: major and
minor. A major theme is an idea that a writer repeats in his
work, making it the most significant idea in a literary work. A
minor theme, on the other hand, refers to an idea that appears in
a work briefly and gives way to another minor theme.
3- Setting is used to identify and establish the time, place and
mood of the events of the story. It basically helps in establishing
where and when and under what circumstances the story is
taking place.
4- Point of View is the perspective from which a story is told;
the narrator's position in relation to the story. Point of view may
be first person, third person, or less commonly, second person.
First person is used when the main character is telling the story.
This is the kind that uses the "I" narrator. As a reader, one can
only experience the story through this person's eyes. So he/she
won't know anything about the people or events that this
character hasn't personally experienced. Second person point of
view is generally only used in instructional writing. It is told
from the perspective of "you". Third person is used when the
narrator is not a character in the story. Third person uses the
"he/she/it" narrator and it is the most commonly used in telling
stories.
5- Characters; character is a person portrayed in a novel, short
story, or any other literary genre. Broadly speaking, a novel
contains two types of character: Major Characters and Minor
Characters. The Majors are also known as Round Characters,
while The Minors as Flat Characters. Flat characters are twodimensional in that they are relatively uncomplicated and do not
change throughout the course of a work. By contrast, round
characters are complex and undergo development, sometimes
sufficiently to surprise the reader.
Types of Novel
1-The Picaresque Novel; early form of novel, usually a firstperson narrative, relating the adventures of a rogue or lowborn
adventurer as he drifts from place to place and from one social
milieu to another in his effort to survive. In its episodic
structure, the picaresque novel resembles the long, rambling
romances of medieval chivalry, to which it provided the first
realistic counterpart.
Ex. Henry Fielding's Joseph Andrews
2-The Epistolary Novel; a novel told through the medium of
letters written by one or more of the characters. Originating with
Samuel Richardson’s Pamela; or, Virtue Rewarded (1740), the
story of a servant girl’s victorious struggle against her master’s
attempts to seduce her, it was one of the earliest forms of novel
to be developed and remained one of the most popular up to the
19th century. The epistolary novel’s reliance on subjective
points of view makes it the forerunner of the modern
psychological novel.
3-The Gothic Novel, a novel that combines fiction, horror,
death and Romanticism. Its origin is attributed to English author
Horace Walpole in his The Castle of Otranto: A Gothic Story
(1764). The place was gloomy castle furnished with dungeons,
subterranean passages and sliding panels. The story focuses on
the suffering of an innocent heroine by a cruel and lustful
villain. The writer manipulates ghosts, mysterious
disappearances and other sensational and supernatural elements.
The main target of such stories was to evoke chilling terror by
exploiting mystery and a variety of horrors. The elements of the
gothic novel are: supernatural elements, gloom, terror, mystery,
suspense, violence, cruelty, odd psychological states and finally
woman in distress.
4-The Historical Novel; a novel that has as its setting a period
of history and that attempts to convey the spirit, manners, and
social conditions of a past age with realistic detail and fidelity to
historical fact. The work may deal with actual historical
personages, as does Robert Graves’s Claudius (1934), or it may
contain a mixture of fictional and historical characters. It may
focus on a single historic event, as does Franz Werfel’s Forty
Days of Musa Dagh (1934). Sir Walter Scott (1771-1832) did
invent the form of the historical novel, but he can be viewed as
its greatest practitioner. Scott's fiction satisfies our need for a
pragmatic acceptance of the present and future without denying
our keen interest in the glories of the past. It is for this reason
that he exerted such a powerful influence on the readers of his
day.
5-The Romantic Novel, a novel that places its primary focus on
the relationship and romantic love between two people, and
must have an "emotionally satisfying and optimistic ending."
Many examples can be taken to represents this genre, chief
among them the novels of Jane Austen, Emma, Pride and
Prejudice, etc.
6-The Regional Novel, a novel describing people and landscape
of an actual locality outside the metropolis.
7-The Satirical Novel, a novel in which vices, follies, abuses,
and shortcomings are held up to ridicule, ideally with the intent
of shaming individuals, corporations, government or society
itself, into improvement. Although satire is usually meant to be
humorous, its greater purpose is often constructive social
criticism, using wit to draw attention to both particular and
wider issues in society. For example, Charles Dickens' Novels.
8-The Bildungsroman Novel, a novel that focuses on the
psychological and moral growth of the protagonist from youth
to adulthood.
9-The Detective Novel, a novel in which a crime is introduced
and investigated and the culprit is revealed.
10-The Saga Novel, a novel in which the members or
generations of a family or social group are chronicled in a long
and leisurely narrative.
The following are headlines to discern the emergence of novel
as a rising genre in the Victorian period, in addition to a
significant question to determine the first modern novel as being
a controversial issue:
- Novel is imaginary piece of writing
2-It is not the most important literary genre, but it is the literary
genre with which we are most in touch in our time.
3- Don Quixote by Cervantes, the story which everybody
knows, it is about a nobleman, not very wealthy, in the late
sixteenth century Spain, who read lot and lot of chivalric novels,
and he wanted to be a true heroic knight, in a country which
really didn’t need this because they have their own police, and it
is well organized. He went for adventure, and each adventure
ended very badly; almost like Charlie Chaplin movie, he is
beaten up and suffered a great deal. Many consider this to be
the first modern novel because it holds now many chivalric
novels.
4-National Pride in Europe, each nation claims to have its own
first modern novel. In France, it is said that La Princesse de
Clèves: The Princess of Cleves by Madame de La Fayette
(1678).
5-In England, Moll Flanders by Daniel Defoe is the first modern
novel, (1722), while others believe that Richardson's Pamela
(1740) to be the first one.
6-In Russia, the first modern novel is this which has been
written by Russian Writers, Tolstoy and Dostoevsky.
7-Ancient novel idealized human being.
8-Other novels which make fun on human beings
9-fun on serious things
10-Two major lines: idealized line and derogatory line:
perfection of human beings and imperfection of those beings.
11- The history of the novel is a history of polemics, of tensions,
of debates between the ideals and the imperfections.
12- It's about the human struggle to truly inhabit this world,
following either the ideals or the reals.