STRUCTURE IN

PROSE
Past and present in
English literature

The novel
THE

ENLIGHTENMENT-1660-1798
(50% of men are literate)
ROMANTICISM 1798 1832
VICTORIAN PERIOD- 1832-1900
MODERN- 1900-1930
POSTMODERN- 1930-1980
CONTEMPORARY- 1980-PRESENT

Structure in the NOVEL

1.

THE TITLE
2. THE PREFACE
3. THE BODY

1. THE TITLE

FUNCTIONS:

to inform the
reader
- to summarize
the storys
main topic
-

FORM

Short
Catchy
Coherent

18th centuryENLIGHTENMENT

Daniel Defoe, The Life and Strange

Surprising Adventures of Robinson
Crusoe, of York, Mariner 1719
Jonathan Swift, Travels into Several Remote
Nations of the World, in Four Parts. By
Lemuel Gulliver, First a Surgeon, and then
a Captain of Several Ships, 1735
Lawrence Sterne, The Life and Opinions of
Tristram Shandy, Gentleman, 1769
Samuel Richardson, Pamela, 1740
Henry Fielding, Shamela, 1741
Horace Walpole, The Castle of Otranto, 1764

19th century- ROMANTICISM,

VICTORIAN PERIOD
Charlotte Bronte, Jane Eyre, 1847
Emily Bronte, Wuthering Heights, 1847
Charles Dickens, David Copperfield, 1849
Charles Dickens, A Tale of Two Cities, 1859
Thomas Hardy, Tess of the dUrbervilles,
1891
Lewis Carroll, Alices Adventures in
Wonderland, 1865

MODERN, POSTMODERN

A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man,

James Joyce (1916)
Ulysses, James Joyce (1922)
The Great Gatsby, F. Scott Fitzgerald (1925)
Brave New World, Aldous Huxley (1932)
The Sound and the Fury, William Faulkner
(1929)
Lolita, Vladimir Nabokov (1958)
Catch-22, Joseph Heller (1961)

MODERN, POSTMODERN

Darkness at Noon, Arthur Koestler (1941)

Sons and Lovers, D. H. Lawrence (1913)
The Grapes of Wrath, John Steinbeck (1939)
Under the Volcano, Malcolm Lowry (1947)
1984, George Orwell (1949)
The Infernal Desire Machines of Doctor
Hoffman, published in the United States as
The War of Dreams (1972) Angela Carter
To the Lighthouse, Virginia Woolf (1927)
An American Tragedy, Theodore Dreiser
(1925)

2. THE PREFACE
FORM

& FUNCTIONS:
It appears BEFORE the story begins
The writer addresses the readers
to give information on the writer and
the circumstances of writing
to give indications of the genre
to offer additional details on
characters

NOVEL OF
TRAVELS AND ADVENTURES
18TH CENTURY-

ROBINSON CRUSOE, D. Defoe

If ever the story of any private man's
adventures in the world were worth making
public, and were acceptable when published,
the editor of this account thinks this will be
so. The story is told with modesty, with
seriousness, and with a religious application
of events to the uses to which wise men
always apply themThe editor believes the
thing to be a just history of fact; neither is
there any appearance of fiction in it.

18TH CENTURY- BILDUNGSROMAN

TOM JONES, H. Fielding, 1749

To you, Sir, it is owing that this history was

ever begun. It was by your desire that I first
thought of such a composition. So many
years have since past, that you may have,
and give me at least leave, in this public
manner, to declare that I am, with the
highest respect and gratitude,-Sir,
Your most obliged,Obedient, humble servant,
HENRY FIELDING.

18TH CENTURY

ANTINOVEL

TRISTRAM SHANDY, L. Sterne

Volume 3 ch 21
THE
A U T H O R ' S P R E F A C E.
N O, I'll not say a word about it, -here it is ; ---- in publishing it, ---I have appealed to the world, ---- and to
the world I leave it ; ---- it must speak for
itself.

3. THE BODY
Exposition
Introduces protagonists and their main
traits
Introduces general setting
It hooks the reader
Main plot has not started. The conflict
begins with an event known as the
inciting incident

3. THE BODY
Rising

action

Establishes the conflict and characters

motivations
The conflict - internal & external
Several mini-adventures within the main
plot
Longest act of the story
Builds tension, excitement, and suspense
over time

3. THE BODY
Climax
Most intense, exciting moment of the
story.
Storylines come together

3. THE BODY
Falling

action or resolution

a short but vital part of the story

that resolves the climax.
Shows the outcome of the climax
Tells the reader the status of the
main characters

3. THE BODY
Dnouemont
The characters are back in a similar
setting as in the exposition
The protagonist behaves differently,
showing effect of the storys conflict
A great dnouement shows how the
characters have changed.

18

TH

CENTURY

ROBINSON CRUSOE, D. Defoe- table of

contents
CHAPTER I - START IN LIFE
CHAPTER II - SLAVERY AND ESCAPE
CHAPTER III - WRECKED ON A DESERT
ISLAND
CHAPTER IV - FIRST WEEKS ON THE ISLAND
CHAPTER V - BUILDS A HOUSE - THE
JOURNAL

18

TH

CENTURY

TOM JONES, H. Fielding

Introduction to the Work, or Bill of Fare to t

he Feast
A Short Description of Squire Allworthy
The Readers Neck Brought Into Danger by a
Description
Mrs. Deborah is Introduced Into the Parish
Containing Matters Which Will Surprize the
Reader
The Hospitality of Allworthy
Containing Many Rules, and Some Examples,
Concerning Falling in Love

20

TH

FINNEGANS

1939

CENTURY

WAKE, James Joyce,

Hark!
Tolv two elf kater ten (it can't be) sax.
Hork!
Pedwar pemp foify tray (it must be) twelve.
And low stole o'er the stillness the heartbeats of sleep.
White fogbow spans. The arch embattled. Mark as
capsules.
The nose of the man who was nought like the nasoes.
It is self tinted, wrinkling , ruddled . His kep is a
gorsecone . He am Gascon

20

TH

CENTURY

A MAGGOT, John Fowles, 1985

Q. Jones, I have been at great cost to find you.

A. I know it, sir, and am most sorry.
Q. You have read this summary of Mr Francis Lacy's
deposition?
A. I have, sir.
Q. You do not deny you are he Mr Lacy speaks of?
A. No, sir. I cannot.
Q. But you denied it to him I sent to fetch you hither?
A. I knew him not, sir. He said at first nothing of Mr
Lacy, and I consider myself with respect that worthy
gentleman's friend, and bound in honour to protect
him if I could. For I knew him as innocent as Jones,
sir, in what passed last April.

ENDING
MEMORABLE
SATISFACTORY

ENDING

18TH CENTURY
ROBINSON

CRUSOE. D. Defoe

All these things, with some very

surprising incidents in some new
adventures of my own, for ten years
more, I shall give a farther account of
in the Second Part of my Story.

20

TH

ULYSSES,

CENTURY

James Joyce, 1922

O that awful deep down torrent O and the sea the sea crimson
sometimes like fire and the glorious sunsets and the figtrees in
the Alameda gardens yes and all the queer little streets and
pink and blue and yellow houses and the rose gardens and the
jessamine and geraniums and cactuses and Gibraltar as a girl
where I was a Flower of the mountain yes when I put the rose
in my hair like the Andalusian girls used or shall I wear a red
yes and how he kissed me under the Moorish wall and I
thought well as well him as another and then I asked him with
my eyes to ask again yes and then he asked me would I yes to
say yes my mountain flower and first I put my arms around him
yes and drew him down Jo me so he could feel my breasts all
perfume yes and his heart was going like mad and yes I said
yes I will Yes.

20 century
th

FINNEGANS WAKE, James Joyce

riverrun, past Eve and Adam's, from swerve

of shore to bend of bay, brings us by a
commodius vicus of recirculation back to
Howth Castle and Environs
(A way a lone a last a loved along the)
beginning of the novel

20 century
th

THE

COMPANY OF WOLVES, Angela

Carter, 1979

See! sweet and sound she sleeps in

granny's bed, between the paws of
the tender wolf.